The past week witnessed a significant surge in blockchain funding, with over $139 million invested across 21 distinct deals. This activity highlights continued investor confidence in decentralized finance (DeFi), Web3 gaming, and the rapidly emerging intersection of artificial intelligence (Web3 AI). Leading the pack was a major $15 million raise for a new DeFi platform, underscoring the sector's ongoing innovation.
Detailed Funding Breakdown
Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
The DeFi sector was the most active, accounting for seven funding announcements and attracting substantial venture capital interest.
Legends Raises $15 Million from a16z and Coinbase Ventures
The decentralized financial platform Legends announced a successful $15 million first round. The investment was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Coinbase Ventures. Founded by former Compound executives, including ex-CEO Jayson Hobby, Legends aims to build upon the foundational work done at Compound. The platform seeks to simplify decentralized finance by providing a unified application for users to manage their crypto assets, eliminating the need to juggle multiple apps. Its immediate focus is on launching on the Apple App Store and building a robust user base, with a future revenue model planned around subscriptions.
Blum Secures $5 Million for Hybrid Trading Experience
Innovative trading application Blum closed a $5 million pre-seed and seed round. The funding was led by gumi Cryptos Capital, with participation from Spartan, No Limit Holdings, OKX Ventures, and others. Blum is developing a trading experience that seamlessly bridges decentralized (DEX) and centralized exchanges (CEX), targeting a potential user base of 90 million.
DeFi.app Adds $4 Million at $100M Valuation
The DeFi trading platform DeFi.app raised an additional $4 million in a seed extension round, maintaining a token valuation of $100 million. The round saw participation from Mechanism Capital, DCF Capital, and notable angel investors via the Echo platform. The platform has now officially entered public beta, offering gas-free cross-chain token swaps, decentralized asset management, and fiat on-ramps. Future plans include launching perpetual contracts, yield farms, and lending services.
InfiniFi Completes $3 Million Pre-Seed Round
DeFi project InfiniFi announced a $3 million Pre-Seed round led by Electric Capital, with New Form Capital and Kraynos Capital participating. Described as a depositor-driven DeFi system, InfiniFi is preparing to launch a USD-pegged deposit receipt token (DRT) in Q2 2024, with planned integrations into major DeFi protocols like Aave and Pendle.
Cabal Raises $3 Million for Revenue-Generating Protocol
The revenue-generating protocol Cabal completed a $3 million funding round with investments from Hack VC, Delphi Ventures, and Nascent. Built on the Initia Layer1 network, Cabal is designed to accumulate governance rights and reward VIP users. It allows participants to deposit assets in exchange for liquid, income-generating instruments, enhancing ecosystem participation.
Whetstone Launches Protocol with $1.3 Million Pre-Seed
Whetstone secured $1.3 million in Pre-Seed funding from investors including Variant and Uniswap Ventures. The company concurrently launched the Doppler protocol, which aims to optimize on-chain asset distribution and liquidity guidance. Doppler seeks to reduce bot activity, improve price discovery, and introduce programmable vesting schedules to align long-term incentives between projects and their communities. It is initially deployed on Unichain.
TaoFi Completes Strategic Round for AI Finance on Bittensor
The decentralized AI financial platform TaoFi completed a strategic funding round led by DCG, with Pantera Capital and others participating. TaoFi is building a financial layer on the Bittensor EVM, planning to launch a TAO-based stablecoin, a decentralized exchange (TAO Swap), and liquid staking services to merge decentralized AI with crypto finance.
Web3 Gaming
The gaming sector announced three deals, focusing on analytics and development tools.
GamerBoom Raises $9 Million for AI Game Data Analytics
The Solana-based AI game data analysis and incentive protocol GamerBoom raised $9 million in its latest round. This brings its total funding to over $11 million. The investment saw participation from Bing Ventures, SKY Ventures, and received strategic support from NVIDIA and Solana. GamerBoom uses AI for data annotation and analysis to increase the utility of Web3 game data. The new capital will accelerate the development of its analytics solutions. The protocol also plans to launch a new points reward season and core NFT sales to engage the Web3 gaming community.
Mirai Labs Secures $4 Million for AI Agent Development
Web3 development studio Mirai Labs completed a $4 million seed round led by Mechanism Capital. The studio is developing a product called Partnr, which enables AI agents to perform consumer-oriented crypto tasks, such as managing wallets, and aims to learn user preferences over time.
Beamable Receives Funding from Sui Foundation for Web3 Tools
Beamable received additional funding from the Sui Foundation to expand its Web3 game development capabilities. The funding will enhance its integration with the Sui blockchain, adding features like dynamic NFTs, closed-loop tokens, and storage wallets. A key feature is zkLogin, allowing seamless Web2 logins via Google or Twitch to create Sui wallets. These tools will be available for Unity and Unreal Engine developers, with initial applications planned for projects like Warped Games.
AI and Web3
Two significant raises highlighted the growing synergy between AI and blockchain technology.
FrodoBots Raises $8 Million for Crypto-Robotics Network
FrodoBots completed an $8 million round led by Protocol VC to launch BitRobot, a network combining cryptography and robotics technology to advance Embodied AI. The project will use cryptographic incentives to pool resources like computing power, storage, and physical robots to accelerate development. It also plans to open-source some of its research for the broader robotics community.
NodeGo Secures $8 Million for Decentralized AI Compute
Decentralized AI computing infrastructure provider NodeGo raised $8 million in a round led by Hash Capital. The funds will expand its decentralized computing network, improve real-time AI processing, and advance its deployment on the Solana ecosystem. NodeGo aims to alleviate AI computing resource shortages by distributing computing power via blockchain, thereby reducing cloud costs and improving scalability. The platform already boasts over 1.5 million active users.
Infrastructure and Tools
This core sector announced six funding events, focusing on scalability and security.
Plasma Completes $24 Million Round for Stablecoin Blockchain
Stablecoin company Plasma raised $24 million in a first round led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Bitfinex and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino. Plasma is building a blockchain tailored for popular stablecoins, promising zero-fee USDT transactions. It is being constructed on top of the Bitcoin blockchain to leverage its security and decentralization, though it will operate with its own consensus mechanism. A launch is expected in the coming months.
Mango Network Raises $13.5 Million for Multi-VM Infrastructure
The multi-VM full-chain infrastructure network Mango Network closed a $13.5 million round with participation from KuCoin Ventures and Tido Capital. The network claims to integrate the core advantages of OPStack and Move and announced that its next steps are mainnet launch and Token Generation Event (TGE).
Drosera Adds $3.25 Million for Ethereum Security
Ethereum security platform Drosera raised $3.25 million, bringing its total funding to $4.75 million. The round was led by Greenfield Capital. Drosera is developing "Traps," a smart contract designed to detect and eliminate security threats on the Ethereum network in real-time. The funds will support optimization of its technology, expansion to other EVM-compatible chains, and a mainnet launch planned for Q2 2024.
Teneo Protocol Completes $3 Million Seed Round
The decentralized platform Teneo Protocol raised $3 million in a seed round led by RockawayX and Borderless. Teneo connects real-world data with Web3 applications, focusing on data utilization and tokenization for DePIN and AI projects.
Index Raises $2.2 Million for B2B Product Management
B2B product management platform Index raised AUD 3.5 million (approx. $2.2 million) in a seed round led by Blackbird and Bain Capital Ventures. The platform aims to solve fragmentation in traditional product management tools by offering real-time collaboration, customer feedback integration, and engineering docking. It has already attracted companies like Uniswap to its waitlist and has now opened for early access.
Tether Invests in Self-Custody Wallet Zengo
Tether announced a strategic investment in the self-custody crypto wallet Zengo. The investment aims to promote secure self-custody solutions and support the global adoption of stablecoins. The funds will enhance Zengo's cross-blockchain capabilities to seamlessly support Tether's stablecoins across ecosystems and aid the development of Zengo Pro, a premium service featuring anti-theft protection and inheritance transfer capabilities.
Other Sectors
Fireverse Raises $2.5 Million for AI Music Generation
AI-driven Web3 music generation platform Fireverse completed a $2.5 million Series A round co-led by Nobody and supported by OKX Ventures. The platform allows users to create, promote, and monetize music through a Web3 model, offering one-click AI music processing tools, gamification, and blockchain-based copyright protection.
Centralized Finance (CeFi)
HashKey Group Receives $30 Million from Gaorong Capital
Hong Kong-licensed crypto exchange operator HashKey Group received a $30 million investment from Gaorong Ventures, an early backer of major Chinese internet firms. The investment was made at a pre-money valuation of over $1 billion, a figure that has held steady since the company's previous raise. A spokesperson stated the post-money valuation is nearly $1.5 billion.
KUN Secures Funding for Digital Payment Solutions
Digital payment provider KUN completed a "multi-million dollar" seed round led by BAI Capital. KUN provides Web2+Web3 digital payment services that support stablecoins. The new capital will be used to build digital payment solutions for cross-border trade, overseas business, and Web3 enterprises.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the total amount raised in blockchain funding last week?
Over $139 million was invested across 21 different deals. This represents an increase compared to the previous week, indicating strong investor interest in the blockchain space.
Which sector received the most investment?
The DeFi sector was the most active, with seven announced funding rounds. This was followed closely by infrastructure and tools with six rounds, showing that investors are backing both financial applications and the foundational technology that supports them.
What is a common goal for new DeFi platforms like Legends?
A key goal for many new DeFi platforms is to simplify the user experience. They aim to create unified applications that eliminate the need for users to interact with multiple, separate protocols to manage their digital assets effectively. 👉 Explore more strategies for managing digital assets
How is AI being integrated into Web3?
AI is being integrated into Web3 in several innovative ways. Projects are using it for advanced data analysis in gaming, creating AI-powered agents for consumer tasks, and building decentralized computing networks to supply the massive processing power required for AI development.
What are the benefits of a decentralized AI computing network?
Decentralized AI computing networks aim to solve the shortage of expensive, centralized computing resources. By distributing computing power via a blockchain, they can potentially reduce costs, improve scalability, and provide broader access to the computational resources needed for AI model training and inference.
Why are stablecoins a focus for new infrastructure projects?
Stablecoins are a fundamental pillar of the crypto economy, facilitating trading, lending, and payments. New infrastructure projects are being built specifically to support them, offering features like feeless transactions to improve user experience and drive broader adoption. 👉 Get advanced methods for using stablecoins