Crypto Fundraising weekly
Dates: 13 – 19, Mar 2023

This week's biggest funding round

Tilia raised $22M in a Strategic funding round from J.P. Morgan Asset Management*, Dunamu.

Tilia is a San Francisco-based provider of a payments platform for digital economies that enables companies to easily create a robust virtual economy within their game or app, supporting user-to-user transactions while complying with regulatory requirements, and allowing for the payout of users, enabling them to convert stored balances to real-world currency. As a licensed money transmitter, Tilia handles transactions that typical payment processors cannot support, while offering built-in fraud detection, KYC verification, and anti-money laundering (AML) controls.

Pre-seed and Seed investment rounds

Blueberry raised $1.2M in a Seed funding round from Bitscale Capital*, Chainlink labs*, Ashbury Ventures, Alchemix, Olympus DAO, ICHI, Multisig Ventures, Pirata Capital, FunFair Ventures.

Blueberry is a leveraged yield protocol that unifies the DeFi experience by aggregating, automating, and boosting capital efficiency for top DeFi strategies. It enables lenders to lend assets and earn higher lending interest rates, yield farmers/liquidity providers to perform leveraged yield farming/liquidity provision on different asset pairs and strategies, and liquidators to perform liquidations on active positions. Blueberry combines an internal lending market and "position NFTs" that allow users to utilize up to 6x leverage for their yield strategy deployments of choice.

Foresight News raised $2M in a Seed funding round from Foresight Ventures*, Hashkey Capital, Arcane Group.

Foresight News is an influential news and data platform in the Chinese-speaking region that is committed to presenting valuable industry information in various forms. The platform covers the world of Blockchain and Web3 and has the goal of becoming a one-stop platform for creators and builders.

Kometh raised undisclosed amount in a Pre-seed funding round from 500 Global, Tokoin.

Kometh is a Web3 Comics Publishing Platform that uses blockchain technology to enable users to buy, collect, and publish comics in TDC (True Digital Comics) format. It allows users to purchase comics using their non-custodial wallet with ETH, provides benefits and discounts to NFT holders, and enables subscribers to receive new content updates directly from creators. Developed by NFT launchpad Gaspack.

Soul Wallet raised $3M in a Seed funding round from Struck Crypto, NGC Ventures, Dispersion Capital, Alchemy Ventures, Ankr Network, Signum Capital, Game7 (GDC).

Soul Wallet is a next-generation smart contract wallet that enables users to create a wallet without writing down the recovery phrase and recover it using a social recovery tool. The wallet is built on ERC-4337 and supports gasless transactions sponsored by third parties and bundling multiple transactions into one.

TeleportDAO raised $2.5M in a Seed funding round from AppWorks*, DefinanceX*, CoinList, Gate.io Labs, Quantstamp, SNZ Holding, Candaq Fintech Group.

TeleportDAO is a trustless and secure infrastructure that enables cross-chain interoperability by providing an infrastructure for developers to build cross-chain applications. It allows users to transfer data such as contract calls and assets like tokens and NFTs between blockchains in a trustless manner, without relying on third parties. TeleportDAO is a light client bridge that adjusts to different blockchains with different consensus mechanisms and speeds.

Metalink raised $6M in a Seed funding round from Social Capital, Arrington Capital, Sound Ventures, Dapper Labs, Gemini Frontier Fund, Baller Ventures, Human Ventures, Justin “3LAU” Blau, Meltem Demirors, Gmoney, Cozomo de’ Medici, Balaji Srinivasan, Sebastian Borget, Gary Vaynerchuk.

Metalink is a mobile application and social platform for managing non-fungible token (NFT) portfolios that allows users to interact with other collectors in token-gated chatrooms, track their portfolio performance, and access live NFT floor price data and rarity trait data from multiple marketplaces. Metalink also offers aggregated announcements from NFT collection chatrooms and plans to launch a transaction functionality later this year so users can buy, sell, and swap digital assets.

Saferoot raised $1.1M in a Pre-seed funding round from NGC Ventures, Alpha Grep, The General Partnership, Flourish Ventures, Gaingels.

Saferoot is a product by Staging Labs, a crypto security company, that can automatically scan transactions 24/7 and intercept a transaction after a user clicks “send” but before the funds go through. Saferoot can protect digital assets from a malicious attack by transferring them from a vulnerable wallet to a backup safe.

SMOOTH raised $2M in a Seed funding round from NGC Ventures*, Cogitent Ventures, ArkStream Capital, Token Metrics, Alves Ventures.

Smooth is a high-performance module that increases the transactions per second (TPS) of Layer 2 networks and appchains by up to five times through parallel execution. It is a blockchain infrastructure focused on enhancing TPS and reducing transaction wait times.

Jungle raised $6M in a Seed funding round from BITKRAFT Ventures*, Framework Ventures*, Delphi Digital, Fourth Revolution Capital (4RC), Monoceros, 32bit Ventures, Stateless Ventures, SnackClub, Norte Ventures.

Jungle is a web3 gaming studio based in Brazil that specializes in developing and publishing hybrid games that are mobile-first and blockchain-enabled. Jungle says that its first game, a web3 shooter, will be released in 2023 on mobile devices.

Other investment rounds

LSDx Finance raised $2M in a Strategic  funding round from Foresight Ventures*.

LSDx is an ultra-liquid protocol that optimizes the financial value of liquid staking derivatives (LSD) assets, which suffer from limited liquidity and lack of connection with various DeFi protocols. The protocol offers an ultra-liquid solution for all LSD assets, enabling users to benefit from the opportunities that staked assets provide and to stake their LSD assets to receive ETHx for yield farming, liquidity provision, collateralization, and more.

Zash raised undisclosed amount in a Strategic  funding round from WWVentures*.

Zash is a platform that provides an NFT API for developers to access clean, quality-controlled NFT trade and mint datasets from various blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, and Polygon. The platform also offers curated datasets, automated data checks, and superior algorithms to launch NFT products with trust.

TripleC raised undisclosed amount in a  funding round from KuCoin Labs*.

TripleC is a Web3 Game Publisher and Incubator that aims to provide a one-stop platform for game ecosystem, tokenomics, NFT and DeFi, empowering games with blockchain technologies. They incubate and publish web 3 games that reward players with digital assets and offer comprehensive solutions for game developers.

Code4rena raised $6M in a  funding round from Paradigm*.

Code4rena is a community-driven platform that organizes security audit contests for smart contract code, offering wider coverage and guaranteed payouts for participants. The platform incentivizes independent auditors to find bugs before code goes into production, creating a more efficient and diverse approach to traditional audits. The players in the arena include wardens who audit code, sponsors who create prize pools, and judges who rate the performance and findings of wardens.

BR1: Infinite Royale raised undisclosed amount in a Strategic  funding round from Aptos Labs*.

BR1: Infinite Royale is a game created by Bravo Ready studio which allows gamers to pay $1 to spawn and earn SOL for every win. The survival-style game places new characters far away from other players with little access to items.

CNHC raised $10M in a Series A  funding round from KuCoin Ventures*, Circle Ventures, IDG Capital.

CNHC is a stablecoin issuer that launched in 2021 and is pegged 1:1 to the offshore Chinese yuan. The stablecoin is issued on the Ethereum and Conflux blockchains. Its use cases include money transfers and cross-border trade settlements.

Nuqtah raised undisclosed amount in a  funding round from Animoca Brands*, Polygon Ventures.

Nuqtah is the first licensed NFT marketplace platform in Saudi Arabia that aims to empower creators, businesses, and users to easily build, deploy and monetize NFT collections without having to navigate complicated blockchain infrastructure. Its mission is to aggressively spearhead the adoption of Web3 in the MENA region.

Orbs raised $10M in a  funding round from DWF Labs*.

Orbs is an open, decentralized and public blockchain infrastructure that operates on a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism and is executed by a secure network of permissionless validators. Orbs is an L3 protocol and runs over existing L1/L2 blockchains, caters to apps running on existing L1s like Ethereum and TON and allows them to enhance the capabilities of their existing smart contracts.

DressX raised $15M in a Series A  funding round from Greenfield Capital*, Slow Ventures, The Artemis Fund, Red Dao, Warner Music Group.

DressX is a fashion startup that offers digital-only collections from brands and 3D designers to wear in their photos and videos on digital platforms. They have delved into web3 by establishing their own NFT marketplace and partnering with Crypto.com. The NFTs sold on their marketplace can be worn digitally in augmented reality via the DressX app or used as skins in metaverse games.

ALEX raised $2.5M in a Strategic  funding round from Gossamer Capital, Trust Machines.

ALEX is an open-source Bitcoin DeFi platform built on the Stacks Blockchain. It offers users the ability to launch tokens, fixed-rate and fixed-term borrowing/lending, advanced DEX, deposit tokens to earn interest, and obtain high returns through yield farming, with a focus on trading, lending, and borrowing of crypto assets with Bitcoin as the settlement layer and Stacks as the smart contract layer.

Capsule raised undisclosed amount in a  funding round from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z crypto)*, Geometry*, Spice Capital.

Capsule is a crypto wallet infrastructure startup that offers a toolkit for transaction signing and permissioning, leveraging two key innovations: Programmable MPC and Secure Enclave-Managed Authorization. These technologies enable developers to create secure wallets that interact with every app to maximize the benefits of building on crypto rails while keeping funds safe and ensuring keys can only authorize intended transactions.

Wallchain raised undisclosed amount in a  funding round from Cypher Capital*.

Wallchain is a solution that helps businesses and individuals protect against unfair practices by miners in DeFi transactions by integrating an anti-MEV solution within DEXes and wallets. It captures profits generated from DeFi transactions and distributes them to the platform and end-users as cashback. Wallchain also provides a hedge against malicious bots and eliminates the possibility of MEV.

Walker World raised $750K in a  funding round from Merit Circle*.

Walker World is a massive open world adventure and multiplayer game powered by Unreal Engine 5, developed by a team of skilled AAA gaming veterans. The game offers high-definition graphics and incorporates cutting-edge technologies such as AR, VR, and blockchain, providing a dynamic gameplay experience. Walker World allows players to bring their digital identity across different experiences through the use of interoperable 3D avatars and NFTs.

* fund, that lead investment round