Crypto Fundraising weekly
Dates: 17 – 23, May 2026

This week's biggest funding round

Kalshi raised $200M in a funding round from Baillie Gifford, Layer Global.

Kalshi is a CFTC‑regulated prediction market exchange where users trade “event contracts” on real-world outcomes—ranging from politics and sports to economic indicators and weather. It allows participants to buy and sell binary contracts that resolve to $1 if the event occurs.

Pre-seed and Seed investment rounds

Sorted Wallet raised $4.4M in a Seed funding round from Tether*, Gnosis*, Movement.

Sorted Wallet is a non-custodial crypto wallet designed for mobile devices in emerging markets. It is described as a lightweight wallet that is just 10MB, making it suitable for stripped-down feature phones. The wallet has been downloaded 500,000 times and has growing usage in markets including Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Madagascar, and Central America, including Mexico. The team says it is expanding mobile operator integrations and releasing a new payment mechanism.

Checker raised $8M in a Seed funding round from Galaxy Digital, Framework Ventures, Bitso, DFS Lab, Onigiri Capital, SNZ Holding, Velocity Capital.

Checker provides a single API for financial institutions to launch and scale stablecoin and related products. It serves institutional clients and supports use cases including foreign exchange, payments, trading, and investment products. The company also plans to expand into settlement financing and AI-enabled agents.

Other investment rounds

PopDEX raised $30M in a  funding round from Foresight X*.

PopDEX is a trader-first perpetual decentralized exchange focused on capital efficiency, trading experience, and returning platform value to real contributors. The team says the product is being refined with selected traders through a closed test program that focuses on trading process, capital efficiency, product interaction, risk control, and user experience.

Foundation Devices raised $6.4M in a  funding round from Fulgur Ventures*, Arche Capital.

Foundation Devices is a developer of Bitcoin-centric tools that include a hardware wallet Passport.

Cycles raised $6.4M in a Private  funding round from Blockchange Ventures*, Coinbase Ventures, Compound, Primitive.

Cycles is an open clearing protocol designed to provide more efficient multilateral netting, allowing more parties to clear more transactions with less capital. It uses zero-knowledge proofs, trusted execution environments (TEEs), graph algorithms, and other technology to form a web of obligations that can clear the greatest number of transactions using the least capital. The project is also launching a stablecoin called Cycles Pay, tapped into Cycles' clearing engine.

Decent xyz raised undisclosed amount in a M&A  funding round from MoonPay.

Decent.xyz is a cross-chain routing and liquidity company focused on chain-abstracted user experience and low-level cross-chain liquidity. Its technology includes proprietary routing algorithms, bridge infrastructure, and a liquidity layer for onchain execution, settlement, conversion, and payments across more than 200 chains and protocols.

TownSquare raised $16.3M in a Series A  funding round from World Liberty Financial (WLFI), OKX Ventures (ex OKEx Blockdream Ventures), Amber Group, Arcane Group, Animoca Ventures, Stakeholder Capital (SHV), Auros Global, Bixin Ventures, DoraHacks, Ankaa, Mulana IM, Aptos Network.

TownSquare is a crosschain yield infrastructure focused on institutional curated yield and onchain brokerage. It powers institutional curated vaults and crosschain brokerage features, works with curator teams on trading strategies, and supports yield strategies on Monad, Ethereum, and BNBChain. The project also brings USD1 stablecoin and real-world assets such as onchain gold-backed assets into its pipeline.

Jia raised $3M in a  funding round from Coinbase Ventures*, Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), A100x Ventures, The Chernin Group (TCG Crypto), Hashed Emergent.

Jia is a decentralized lending protocol and fintech startup that connects capital to real yield opportunities from small businesses in emerging markets. By offering loans to micro and small businesses, Jia aims to bridge the access-to-finance gap and provide fair access to short-term loans. Through its platform, Jia incentivizes pro-ecosystem behavior, partners with high-quality data providers, and uses rewards tokens to deliver consistent yields to investors while supporting the growth of businesses in underserved markets.

TokenOps raised undisclosed amount in a M&A  funding round from Zama.

TokenOps is an institution-grade token lifecycle management platform for confidential vesting, distributions, and compliance operations on public blockchains. It supports encrypted allocations, release curves, and recipient identities onchain, while allowing selective access to encrypted data for regulators. The platform is described as available across chains and built to help issuers manage token operations with confidentiality and auditability.

Catena Labs raised $30M in a Series A  funding round from Acrew Capital*, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z crypto)*, Breyer Capital, General Catalyst, QED Investors, Oak HC/FT, IDG Capital, Coinbase Ventures.

Catena Labs is pioneering the development of the first AI-native financial institution, tailored to meet the unique needs of AI agents and their human collaborators. Recognizing the limitations of traditional financial systems in accommodating autonomous AI activities, Catena Labs is constructing a regulated infrastructure that enables AI agents to securely identify themselves and conduct financial transactions. Their offerings include the open-source Agent Commerce Kit (ACK), which provides foundational components for AI agent identity and payments.

Cometh raised undisclosed amount in a M&A  funding round from Kaiko.

Cometh is a MiCA-licensed DeFi infrastructure provider delivering compliant onchain solutions for institutions, specialized in smart-contract wallets, account abstraction, and cross-chain integrations. Expert in Layer 2 deployment and white-label DeFi solutions (yield vaults, DEX aggregation, lending) for regulated institutions’ tokenization initiatives.

Variational raised $50M in a Series A  funding round from Dragonfly Capital*, Bain Capital Crypto, Coinbase Ventures.

Variational is a peer-to-peer trading protocol designed for perpetual and generalized derivatives. Its flagship app, Omni, enables users to trade leveraged perpetual contracts on thousands of pairs, including memecoins, pre-launch tokens, and prediction markets. Omni aggregates liquidity from CEXs, DEXs, DeFi, and OTC sources, providing deep liquidity and fair trading conditions for retail users. Variational’s decentralized protocol also supports developers with API access for building custom trading solutions.

Blocknative raised undisclosed amount in a M&A  funding round from Deloitte.

Blocknative provides a global real-time web3 data platform, leveraged by builders and traders as a rich framework to access what's happening in web3 transactions right now.

SignalPlus raised $40M in a  funding round from HashKey Group.

SignalPlus is an enterprise technology company aiming to democratize options trading for digital and crypto assets. The platform offers a comprehensive suite of tools, including advanced risk management features, smart automated orders, and multi-exchange connectivity, catering to both novice and professional traders. SignalPlus integrates with major exchanges and provides real-time market data, facilitating informed decision-making in the cryptocurrency markets.

Temple raised undisclosed amount in a Strategic  funding round from SBI Holdings (SBI Group)*.

Temple Digital Group is a privacy-focused digital asset trading platform built on the Canton Network, enabling compliant, non-custodial capital markets infrastructure. It supports institutions, businesses, and individuals through real-time trading, flexible permissioning, KYC/AML compliance, and atomic settlement. With APIs for RFQ/RFS trading, MEV-resistant execution, and smart order routing, Temple offers deep liquidity and auditable transaction history across global counterparties.

Tomoland raised $2M in a  funding round from Sky9 Capital*, WAGMI Ventures.

Tomoland is a mobile-first user-generated content platform that combines AI-powered creation, social interaction, and true IP ownership. It uses BUD Create infrastructure and aims to let creators turn their digital creations into their own economy. The project also introduces TOMO, an open system where maps, gameplay mechanics, AI tools, and user-generated content are part of the ecosystem.

Ouinex raised $3.5M in a Private  funding round from .

Ouinex is a crypto exchange that uses a centralized matching engine and a no-CLOB trading model. It runs full KYC, lets market makers send bid and ask prices without seeing retail orders, and shows clients one quote after adding a markup. The platform says it is designed so institutional participants make prices rather than take them, and it holds licenses across South Africa, St Vincent, Australia, and Poland.

LemFi raised undisclosed amount in a  funding round from Tether.

LemFi is a financial platform for people who live and work across borders. It connects communities across the UK, US, Canada, and Europe to family and loved ones in Africa and Asia, and supports remittances and cross-border financial services. The platform is integrating USD₮ as a settlement layer across key corridors to enable faster, lower-cost, near-instant settlement and expand stable, transparent, and accessible financial services.

AEON raised $8M in a  funding round from YZi Labs (ex Binance Labs)*, IDG Capital, Hashkey Capital, Blockchain Builders Fund (BBF), Oak Grove Ventures, SevenX Ventures, Draper Dragon, UpHonest Capital.

AEON is building a foundational settlement layer for the emerging agentic economy and its evolving production relations. The project says this layer is needed when AI gains economic agency.

DAOKraft raised $3.4M in a Private  funding round from Animoca Brands, Castrum Capital.

DAOKraft is a governance intelligence layer for DAOs that helps contributors make better decisions before voting.

* fund, that lead investment round