Crypto Fundraising weekly
Dates: 15 – 21, Nov 2021

This week's biggest funding round

Gemini raised $400M in a Series A funding round from Morgan Creek Capital*, 10T Holdings, ParaFi Capital, Newflow Partners, Marcy Venture Partners.

Gemini is a cryptocurrency exchange and custodian that allows users to buy, sell, store, and earn interest on digital assets. It is one of the largest and most reputable cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, and it is known for its strong security features and user-friendly interface. Gemini is committed to making cryptocurrency more accessible and secure, and it is constantly working to improve its platform.

Pre-seed and Seed investment rounds

Snapshot raised $4M in a Seed funding round from 1kx*, THE LAO, MetaCartel Ventures, Gnosis DAO, Starkware, Coinbase Ventures, BoostVC, Scalar Capital, FireEyes, LongHash Ventures.

Snapshot is a voting tool based on the IPFS decentralized storage system, used by many crypto projects to poll their user bases.

BetDEX raised $21M in a Seed funding round from Paradigm, Alameda Research, Multicoin Capital, Hack VC, Lightspeed, SINO Global Capital, Solana Ventures.

BetDEX is a decentralized sports betting protocol.

Kosen Labs raised $5M in a Seed funding round from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z crypto), Framework Ventures, Protocol Labs, Daedalus, Formless Capital.

Kosen Labs aims to bring the benefits of AI & advanced optimisation to the DeFi space and beyond, all while keeping entry barriers low for the end user and allowing everyone to partake in this new economy.

Cypher raised $2.1M in a Seed funding round from SINO Global Capital, SkyVision Capital, Blockwall, mgnr, A41, ROK Capital, AGE Crypto Asset Investment Fund, Alphanonce.

Cypher is a decentralized derivatives exchange on the Solana blockchain that facilitates the trading of dated futures contracts on various crypto assets. The platform offers cross-margining, competitive fees, and an easy-to-use interface, making derivatives trading accessible and efficient. Cypher's unique account model allows traders to manage positions across multiple sub-accounts, offering long, short, and leveraged positions in both spot and derivatives markets.

CyberConnect raised $10M in a Seed funding round from Multicoin Capital, Sky9 Capital, Animoca Brands, Draper Dragon, Hashed, Smrti Lab, Mask Network.

CyberConnect is a decentralized social graph protocol that aims to address issues related to centralized control, lost creator value, data siloing, and stifled innovation in Web 2.0 social media. It is built with IPFS and Ceramic, and allows users to truly own their social identities, contents, and connections while providing developers with a rich set of tools to build applications with meaningful social experiences.

Arrow Markets raised $1.4M in a Seed funding round from Framework Ventures, QCP Soteria, DeFi Capital, Alameda Research, Coin Merge Strategy (CMS), Avalanche, Delphi Digital.

The Arrow protocol democratizes the entire option trading pipeline, from market making to brokering to clearing and settlement.

pSTAKE raised $10M in a Seed funding round from Galaxy Digital*, Sequoia Capital*, DeFiance Capital*, Three Arrows Capital*, Coinbase Ventures, Kraken Ventures, The Spartan Group, SINO Global Capital, Alameda Research.

Unlocking Liquidity for Staked Assets

DigiNation raised $2.4M in a Seed funding round from OKX Ventures (ex OKEx Blockdream Ventures), HTX Ventures (ex Huobi Ventures), Rarestone Capital, Spark Digital Capital, Yuanyuzhou Ventures, LongHash Ventures.

DigiNation is a Web3 Metaverse featuring NFT-based innovation.

PawnFi raised $3M in a Seed funding round from Digital Currency Group (DCG)*, Animoca Brands, Dapper Labs, Polygon Ventures, Alliance DAO (ex DeFi Alliance), Hashkey Capital, Everest Ventures Group (EVG), SNZ Holding, 6Block.

Pawnfi is a brand new lending and leasing market to provide fair appraisal, liquidity and use case for Non-Standard Assets (NSA)

Irreverent Labs raised $5M in a Seed funding round from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z crypto)*, Mantis VC (The Chainsmokers), Unlock Venture Partners, Keen Crypto, Advancit Capital, The Chainsmokers.

Irreverent Labs, Inc. develops games that utilize machine learning and blockchain technology as a means of building titles that will last for prolonged periods of time, potentially decades.

ALEX raised $5.8M in a Seed funding round from White Star Capital*, Cultur3 Capital, GBIC (Global Blockchain Innovative Capital), OKX Ventures (ex OKEx Blockdream Ventures).

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.

Other investment rounds

NYM raised $13M in a Series A  funding round from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z crypto)*, Hashkey Capital, HTX Ventures (ex Huobi Ventures), Fenbushi Capital, Digital Currency Group (DCG).

The next generation of privacy infrastructure

DoraHacks raised $8M in a Strategic  funding round from Binance Labs Fund*.

Dorahacks is a decentralized global hacker community and hackathon organizer focusing on blockchain.

Mem Protocol raised $3.1M in a  funding round from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z crypto), Nebula, Balaji Srinivasan, Charlie Songhurst, Jude Gomila, Olaf Carlson-Wee, Charlie Cheever.

Mem Protocol will store information on network participants — including social media history, on-chain activity, and professional experience — in cryptographically secured "vaults." That data is controlled by the users, rather than Mem Protocol, and can serve as a "social credit score"—or social graph—when a user gives a green light.

Anoma raised $26M in a  funding round from Polychain Capital*, Electric Capital, Zola Global Investors, CMCC Global, Fifth Era, Maven 11 Capital.

Anoma is a sovereign, proof-of-stake blockchain protocol that enables private, asset-agnostic cash and private bartering among any number of parties.

ConsenSys raised $200M in a Series C  funding round from Marshall Wace*, Third Point*, ParaFi Capital, Think Investments, Animoca Brands, Coinbase Ventures, HSBC, Dragonfly Capital (ex Metastable Capital), Electric Capital, The Spartan Group, DeFiance Capital, SterlingVC, Sanctor Capital.

ConsenSys builds Ethereum blockchain infrastructure and applications ranging from developer tools to enterprise solutions.

Wonder raised $2.5M in a  funding round from Chapter One, Village Global, Slow Ventures, The Spartan Group, Lattice Fund, Sneaky Ventures, FJ Labs, Dapper Labs, Basecamp, Tess Ventures.

Wonder’s intuitive task management system allows DAOs and teams to organize projects, pay contributors, and collaborate in their project metaverse.

The Gallery raised $2.7M in a  funding round from Collab+Currency*, Distributed Global*, Lattice Fund, PTC Crypto (Palm Tree Crew), Galaxy Interactive, Flamingo, Scalar Capital, THE LAO, Coinbase Ventures, Dapper Labs.

A team of experts offering the best NFT crypto artists artworks to the finest Digital Art Collectors

StarkNet raised $50M in a Series C  funding round from Sequoia Capital*, Paradigm, Three Arrows Capital, Alameda Research, Founders fund, IOSG Ventures, Data Collective DCVC.

StarkNet is a permissionless decentralized Validity-Rollup (also known as a “ZK-Rollup”). It operates as an L2 network over Ethereum, enabling any dApp to achieve unlimited scale for its computation – without compromising Ethereum’s composability and security, thanks to StarkNet’s reliance on the safest and most scalable cryptographic proof system – STARK.

Ape Board raised $1.2M in a Strategic  funding round from The Spartan Group, DeFiance Capital, LongHash Ventures, SCB 10X.

Multi-chain DeFi Dashboard.

Spectral raised $6.8M in a  funding round from Polychain Capital*, Galaxy Digital, Social Capital, ParaFi Capital, Edge & Node, Metapurse.

Spectral Finance is a web3 startup that creates a programmable creditworthiness ecosystem using credit risk analysis. They developed the Multi-Asset Credit Risk Oracle (MACRO) Score, an on-chain equivalent to the traditional FICO score, which enables users to check their credit scores through their platform. Spectral Finance aims to improve credit risk assessment by leveraging on-chain data and introducing the concept of Non-Fungible Credit (NFC), which allows users to bundle wallets and sync their transactional history into a single composable asset.

* fund, that lead investment round