Crypto Fundraising weekly
Dates: 07 – 13, Jan 2024

This week's biggest funding round

Tune Fm raised $20M in a funding round from LDA Capital.

Tune.FM is a web3 decentralized music streaming platform and NFT marketplace. It offers instant streaming royalties through micropayments, allowing artists to earn significantly more than traditional platforms like Spotify or Apple Music. Artists can promote songs, expand their fanbase, and mint music collectibles as NFTs, including songs, albums, art, videos, and experiences. Fans can earn by listening to promoted music, enjoy high-quality lossless audio, and buy digital collectibles, gaining access to exclusive artist experiences. Tune.FM uses the JAM token to facilitate these transactions, aiming to revolutionize music streaming and artist compensation.

Pre-seed and Seed investment rounds

Particle raised undisclosed amount in a Seed funding round from Polychain Capital*, Nascent, Inflection, Neon DAO, Arthur Hayes.

Permissionless leverage trading protocol for any digital asset.

Kasu raised $3M in a Seed funding round from Woodstock*, Morningstar Ventures*, Faculty Group*, Cypher Capital, Andromeda Capital, NxGen, Rarestone Capital, Optic Capital, Asteroid Capital, Matterblock.

Kasu is a Real World Asset (RWA) business lending protocol. The platform is a joint venture between Faculty Group and Apxium Technologies, blending Web3 and traditional finance technologies. It focuses on optimizing business cash flows to improve credit risk, providing superior risk management and high-quality yields in decentralized finance. Kasu's technology, which includes accounts receivable automation and advanced lending solutions, has proven effective in reducing debtor days and enhancing creditworthiness before advancing funds against outstanding invoices.

Altitude raised $4M in a Seed funding round from Tioga Capital Partners, New Form Capital, GSR Markets LTD, G1 Ventures, UDHC, Flow Ventures, Owl Ventures, Soft Holdings, Metavision.

Altitude is a protocol that automates and optimizes collateralized loan management in real-time across leading DeFi platforms, ensuring borrowers access the best interest rates while maximizing the use of collateral to generate yield and reduce debt.

TrendX raised $1M in a Seed funding round from Web3Link, Coresky, CatcherVC, MIIX Capital, Tripod Capital, Foster Labs.

TrendX is an AI-powered Web3 platform designed to track trends and facilitate intelligent trading. TrendX offers features like trend discovery, sentiment analysis, and both primary and secondary trading opportunities, leveraging advanced algorithms for informed investment strategies.

Rocket3 raised $1.2M in a Pre-seed funding round from SOSV.

Rocket3 is a user-centric platform designed to streamline on-chain transactions by reducing gas fees and optimizing order sorting. Through its hybrid solution, Rocket3 consolidates essential trading steps into a single platform, enhancing user experience by minimizing time friction and transaction costs. Additionally, Rocket3 leverages AI tools and Large Language Models to aid in trading decisions and provide insightful event tracking analysis.

Befy Protocol raised $234K in a Seed funding round from Zephyrus Capital, AlfaDAO, DCDAO, 0xJeff.

Befy is a pioneering decentralized bridge that enables cross-chain transactions between Bitcoin and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible networks. Utilizing a Proof of Stake (POS) network, it introduces decentralized bridge nodes. These nodes can be set up by anyone, without needing permission, simplifying the process of becoming a bridge node. The platform is designed for security, efficiency, speed, and cost-effectiveness, enhancing the connectivity between Bitcoin and EVM networks. This innovation opens new possibilities for blockchain interoperability and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

CharacterX raised $2.8M in a Seed funding round from Lightspeed*, INCE Capital*, Spark Digital Capital*, Cryptogram Venture (CGV), ZC Capital, Fermion Capital, Fan Zhang, 84000LP.

CharacterX is a decentralized AI social network where users interact with diverse AI characters, each possessing unique personalities and purposes, ranging from educators to anime personas. Developed by an experienced Stanford team, CharacterX integrates advanced AGI technology with blockchain to offer immersive and secure virtual companionship experiences, including 3D and AR interactions.

Other investment rounds

SkyArk Chronicles raised $15M in a  funding round from Binance Labs Fund*, Bitscale Capital, Signum Capital, Kyros Ventures, Gate Labs, Mapleblock Capital, Maven Capital, Openspace Ventures, Everyrealm, Cryptomeria Capital, UOB Venture Management, GuildFi, Cogitent Ventures, BreederDAO, LayerZero Labs, Jambo, Widus Partners, Cryptogram Venture (CGV), Meta Impact Capital.

Skyark Chronicles is a blockchain-based game that incorporates a variety of features, offering a unique and immersive experience. The game presents a play-to-own concept, allowing players to own or trade in-game assets. It utilizes SkyTokens as part of its ecosystem and features interoperable NFTs across different titles, enhancing gameplay variety. The SkyEngine is a proprietary NFT Engine, bridging traditional brands with the Web3.0 metaverse. Additionally, Skyark Chronicles aims to revolutionize GameFi by offering GameFi-as-a-Service (GAAS) to game studios entering the Web3.0 space. The game offers diverse experiences in its multiverse, from fantasy to modern urban settings.

Pontem raised $6M in a  funding round from Lightspeed*, Lightspeed Faction*, Pantera Capital, Aptos Network, Wintermute, Altonomy, Shima Capital, Kraken Ventures, WWVentures.

Pontem is a Web3 product development studio focused on enabling developers to create applications that are compatible with both Ethereum Virtual Machine and Move, a programming language. The studio's technology, initially developed by members of the Aptos team, emphasizes increasing the utility of the Move language, known for its security and scalability features. Pontem is actively working on developing Move Virtual Machine products for EVM-compatible blockchains, like Ethereum, and has plans to support additional blockchain languages in the future.

Eesee raised $2.9M in a  funding round from SevenX Ventures, Maven Capital, Daedalus, Contango Digital Assets, Momentum 6 (M6), BasementDAO, Metabros.

Eesee is an innovative gamified marketplace. It stands out with its unique raffle system, enabling sellers to creatively sell digital assets and reduce buy-side friction. The platform is tailored for digital assets, tokens, and real-world assets (RWAs). It allows sellers to create customized gamified drops, like decentralized on-chain raffles, and offers buyers action-based entry opportunities, aligning with the ethos of the crypto industry.

DeFi (ex DeFiYield) raised undisclosed amount in a Strategic  funding round from 21Shares.

De.Fi is a comprehensive DeFi dashboard that combines asset and risk management tools. It allows users to track wallet information by token, offering price, balance, and USD value details, along with the ability to filter data by blockchain network. De.Fi also facilitates token exchanges at the best available rates, making it a versatile platform for managing DeFi assets.

PolyHedra raised undisclosed amount in a Series A  funding round from OKX Ventures (ex OKEx Blockdream Ventures)*.

PolyHedra is an infrastructure for Web3 Interoperability with cutting-edge zero-knowledge proof systems. It has developed several infrastructure offerings: ZK bridge (zkBridge) solution to send assets between web2 and web3 systems; a ZK decentralized identity solution (zkDID), a scalability solution, using a large-scale distributed proof generation network called ParaPlonk, to accelerate ZK rollups; design space for Web3 through highly scalable middlewares including ZK-NFT containers.

Finoa raised $15M in a Strategic  funding round from Maven 11 Capital*, Balderton Capital*, Blue Bay Ventures, Signature Ventures, Coparion, Venture Stars.

Finoa is a regulated custodian for crypto assets, servicing professional investors with custody and staking. Finoa holds a preliminary crypto-asset custody license (§64y Para. 1 KWG) and is supervised by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).

Entangle raised $4M in a  funding round from Big Brain Holdings, LaunchCode Capital, iVerse Vision (ex Istari Vision), LBANK Labs, Skynet EGLD Capital, Cogitent Ventures, Faculty Group, Seier Capital, 1NVST, Sharding Capital, Agnostic Fund, Castrum Capital, NxGen, MH Ventures, Contango Digital Assets, Crypto Times, Owl Ventures.

Entangle is a customizable messaging infrastructure designed for Web3, offering secure, interoperable data storage on the blockchain, empowering builders to create unique cross-chain applications and optimize ecosystem liquidity.

Ringfence raised $1.5M in a  funding round from Rarestone Capital*, Morningstar Ventures*, BasementDAO, Noir Ventures, NxGen, Spark Digital Capital, Curiosity Capital, Marshland Capital, Optimista Capital.

Ringfence is an AI platform that safeguards original artwork used in AI-generated content (AIGC) by creating unique "fingerprints" from the artwork, ensuring artists receive rightful credit and compensation in the AIGC ecosystem.

AI Arena raised $6M in a  funding round from Framework Ventures*, SevenX Ventures, FunPlus, Xterio, Moore Strategic Ventures.

AI Arena, developed by ArenaX Labs, is an innovative PVP fighting game reminiscent of Nintendo's Smash Bros. It uniquely integrates AI learning to evolve its characters continuously.

Umoja Labs raised $2M in a  funding round from Blockchain Founders Fund, Quantstamp, Blizzard, Orange DAO, Hyperithm, Psalion VC.

Umoja is a cutting-edge financial platform offering market loss protection for digital asset investments. It enables users to hedge against the exposure risk of fiat, crypto, and real-world assets in a cost-effective manner. The platform stands out by allowing anyone to participate in or create a risk hedging strategy with features like high liquidity, low counterparty risk, and minimal upfront costs. Umoja operates by trading perpetual futures, options, and bonds on-chain, replicating traditional hedging instruments, thereby democratizing the process of market risk minimization.

Saros raised $3.8M in a  funding round from Solana Ventures, Hashed, The Spartan Group, Arche Fund (Coin98 Ventures), Genesis Block Ventures Capital (GBV), Impossible Finance, Genblock Capital, K300 Ventures, Cryptomind Group, Kyros Ventures, Evernew Capital, Asymm Ventures.

Saros Finance is a comprehensive suite of DeFi products built on the Solana blockchain, featuring SarosSwap as its central automated market maker (AMM). The ecosystem also includes SarosFarm for yield farming and SarosStake for staking, collectively designed to foster a robust network within the Solana ecosystem, attracting both developers and users.

Ta-da raised $3.5M in a  funding round from Morningstar Ventures, MultiversX, X ventures, Genesis Block Ventures Capital (GBV), Alpha Protocol Ventures, Spark Digital Capital, NxGen, Let’s Go Ventures.

Ta-da is a multifaceted platform offering high-quality data collection and validation services through crowdsourcing, emphasizing a "Human in the Loop" approach for accuracy. Designed for businesses and AI builders, Ta-da covers various data types like voice recordings, images, videos, and text, ensuring reliable datasets at fair prices.

* fund, that lead investment round