Crypto Fundraising weekly
Dates: 16 – 22, Jun 2024

This week's biggest funding round

Renzo raised $17M in a funding round from Brevan Howard Digital*, Galaxy Digital*, Maven 11 Capital, Figment Capital, Protagonist, SevenX Ventures, Bankless Ventures, 280Capital, Antalpha Ventures, ConsenSys, L2 Iterative Ventures (L2IV), Karatage.

Renzo is an Ethereum restaking protocol based on EigenLayer. It simplifies the complexities of restaking on EigenLayer, offering users a more accessible and liquid way to engage with the process. Renzo allows users to deposit ether and, in the future, liquid staking tokens (LSTs), in exchange for ezETH, a liquid restaking token (LRT) usable in DeFi applications. The protocol, which recently launched its beta mainnet, aims to support more blockchains and expand its services to Layer 2 networks and other Layer 1 networks.

Pre-seed and Seed investment rounds

Zeek Network raised $3M in a Seed funding round from OKX Ventures (ex OKEx Blockdream Ventures), Animoca Brands, Mask Network, Arche Fund (Coin98 Ventures), Summer Ventures, Blockchain Coinvestors, Aspen Digital, CatcherVC, Panony, Hardbank, MapleLeafCap.

Zeek is a decentralized collaboration economy that incentivizes reputation through social bounty mechanics called "Wishes." Individual behaviors and engagements build a reputation layer known as "Rizz," which can be monetized and used to measure credibility, reliability, and influence. This system encourages active participation and rewards users for their contributions to the community.

Farworld Labs raised $1.8M in a Pre-seed funding round from Lemniscap*, Variant Fund*.

Farworld Labs is developing the Farcade platform, a suite of tools for creating crypto-native games integrated with decentralized social media. The platform allows games to be instantly playable within social media feeds with a single click, aiming to expedite Q3 releases in collaboration with top-tier studios and developers.

Ordinox raised $1M in a Pre-seed funding round from Digital Asset Capital Management (DACM), Coin Merge Strategy (CMS), UTXO Management, Hidden Street Capital, Sats Ventures, STS Digital, Plassa Capital, domo, Outlier Ventures.

Ordinox is a simple DeFi app-chain built using the Tendermint consensus engine, Cosmos-SDK state machine, and GG20 Threshold Signature Scheme (TSS). It functions as a standalone Layer 1 decentralized exchange (DEX) allowing users to swap various assets on Bitcoin, such as BRC20s and Runes, for EVM assets like USDC and USDT, providing transparent and fair pricing without a central middleman. Utilizing continuous liquidity pools and safeguarding assets directly in on-chain vaults, Ordinox ensures integrity and security by maintaining assets on their original parent chains while enabling cross-chain swaps.

Bitwise raised $2.5M in a Seed funding round from .

Bitwise is a crypto asset management firm known for managing the world's largest crypto index fund and pioneering investment products covering Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi, and crypto-focused equity indexes.

Other investment rounds

Particle Network raised $15M in a Series A  funding round from The Spartan Group*, gumi Cryptos Capital (gCC)*, SevenX Ventures, Morningstar Ventures, Hashkey Capital, MH Ventures, UOB Venture Management, Flow Traders, SNZ Holding.

Particle Network is a full-stack, data-driven, and composable Web3 data and development platform. Its core product is a login and wallet middleware solution that helps developers integrate a user-friendly web3 authentication solution into their decentralized applications. Particle Network’s tooling is multi-chain available on all Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains, and Solana and Tron. It aims to become a full-stack middleware platform for web3 developers.

Gudchain raised $5M in a  funding round from Mechanism Capital*, Morningstar Ventures, Manifold, SkyVision Capital.

Gudchain is a pioneering blockchain platform designed to advance gaming by removing entry barriers for players. Initially commissioned by Highstreet World, Gudchain now enables developers to launch frictionless web3 games, providing a seamless integration of virtual and real-world economies.

Rango Exchange raised undisclosed amount in a Strategic  funding round from Binance Labs Fund*, Nomad Capital, Foresight Ventures.

Rango is a multi-chain super aggregator platform for DEXs and bridges, designed to find the fastest, cheapest, and most secure routes for users' crypto transactions. Supporting over 20 blockchains, 10+ bridges/DEXs, and 6 wallets, Rango performs complex swaps by combining DEXs, DEX aggregators, and cross-chain solutions into a user-friendly interface. It aims to provide higher liquidity, better prices, and simplified multi-chain swaps, becoming the go-to platform for DEX and bridge transactions in the crypto world.

Router Protocol raised undisclosed amount in a  funding round from Wintermute, Banter Capital, Luganodes, Woodstock, Raven, DeFi Capital, Amrit Kumar, Zaki Manian, Surojit Chatterjee, Keone Hon, Anurag Arjun, Aniket Jindal.

Router Protocol is a cross-chain messaging protocol utilizing a mesh network architecture to enable seamless communication between different blockchains. It offers a suite of products, including Voyager, a flexible widget, and an SDK called CrossTalk, all built on a decentralized network using the Cosmos SDK.

ZKX raised $3.1M in a Strategic  funding round from Flowdesk, Global Coin Research (GCR), Dewhales Capital.

ZKX is the first permissionless derivatives trading protocol built on StarkNet, StarkWare’s L2 network that leverages ZK rollups.

Sonic raised $12M in a Series A  funding round from BITKRAFT Ventures*, Galaxy Interactive, Big Brain Holdings, Sanctor Capital, Sky9 Capital, OKX Ventures (ex OKEx Blockdream Ventures), Mirana Ventures, MH Ventures, Cypher Capital, Mask Network.

Sonic is the first atomic SVM chain enabling sovereign game economies on Solana, built on the concurrent scaling framework HyperGrid. It offers a fast, low-cost on-chain game experience, seamless atomic interoperability with Solana's base layer, and supports deploying dApps from EVM chains to Solana. Sonic provides composable gaming primitives, a sandbox environment for developers, and comprehensive monetization infrastructure for games.

Wasabi raised $3M in a  funding round from Electric Capital*, Alliance DAO (ex DeFi Alliance), Memeland, Canonical Crypto, Spencer Ventures, Sharding Capital, Cygaar, Zhuoxun Yin, Luca Netz, Santiago R. Santos, DCF God.

Wasabi is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol enabling leverage trading of memecoins and NFTs, designed for efficient price discovery on long-tail assets. Users can long, short, and stake these assets with leverage, backed by actual assets to eliminate counterparty risk.

Artfi raised $80K in a Public sale  funding round from .

Artfi is a financial and art technology company that democratizes investing in high-value artworks through fractionalization and blockchain technology. By converting prominent artworks into multiple NFTs, Artfi enables retail investors to collectively own and trade fractions of these pieces, accessing the exclusive fine art market.

* fund, that lead investment round