Edition #103 - 14 APR 2024
The Securities and Exchange Commission has been working overtime against crypto. There were 46 enforcement actions against crypto companies in 2023 - an all-time high. SEC is back and has a new target…Uniswap.
gaming developments
On-chain life simulation strategy game Cellula raised $2M in a Pre-seed funding round led by SevenX Ventures, OKX Ventures (ex OKEx Blockdream Ventures), with participation from Mask Network, Foresight Ventures.
Web3 gaming metaverse Planet Mojo raised $5.5M in a Strategic funding round led by Animoca Brands, Merit Circle, Courtside Ventures, with participation from The Spartan Group, Citizen Capital Fund, Sfermion, Big Brain Holdings, Everest Ventures Group (EVG), Republic, SkyVision Capital, NGC Ventures (NEO Global Capital), ReadyPlayerDAO, Alchemy Ventures, Momentum 6 (M6), RW3 Ventures, Collab+Currency, Polkastarter, Metavest Capital, Symbolic Capital, Everyrealm, Fourth Revolution Capital (4RC).
Social sandbox game with AI integration TODAY raised $5M in a Seed funding round led by Sfermion, Big Brain Holdings, with participation from GSR Markets LTD, Collab+Currency, Lingfeng Innovation Fund (LIF), Compute Ventures, Builder Capital, 32bit Ventures, Metavest Capital, Liquid X Ventures, Spirit DAO, dingaling, Grail eth.
Decentralized gaming guild Yield Guild Games received funding from Newman Capital. Amount is not disclosed.
Infrastructure and liquidity layer for predictions and games Azuro raised $3.5M in a funding round from SevenX Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, Arrington Capital, Polymorphic Capital, Red Beard Ventures, Dewhales Capital, G1 Ventures.
metaverses & AI
AI-powered crypto superapp Sharpe AI closed Seed funding round from Animoca Brands, Genesis Block Ventures Capital (GBV), Morningstar Ventures, Maven Capital, Metabros, Contango Digital Assets, Ape Terminal, AIT Protocol, Ivan on Tech, Owen ‘Hasheur’ Simonin, Pentoshi, Virtual Bacon. Amount raised is not disclosed.
AI protocol Bythen raised $3M in a funding round from East Ventures, Beenext, Eden Holdings (ED3N Ventures), GuildFi, dingaling, Grail eth.
Decentralized AI compute platform Ritual received funding from Polychain Capital. Amount is not disclosed.
AI data labeling company Sapien raised $5M in a Seed funding round from Primitive, Animoca Brands, Artichoke Capital, Yield Guild Games (YGG).
DePIN platform Uplink raised $10M in a funding round led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Blockchange Ventures, Stratos Technologies, Outlier Ventures, NxGen, MSM Fund.
AI-powered crypto superapp Sharpe AI closed Seed funding round from Animoca Brands, Genesis Block Ventures Capital (GBV), Morningstar Ventures, Maven Capital, Metabros, Contango Digital Assets, Ape Terminal, AIT Protocol, Ivan on Tech, Owen ‘Hasheur’ Simonin, Pentoshi, Virtual Bacon. Amount raised is not disclosed.
defi
On-chain playground focused on projects within DeFi Spotlight raised $2M in a funding round from Folius Ventures.
Decentralized ZK-RaaS network featuring ZKP mining Lumoz raised $6M in a Series A funding round from OKX Ventures, Hashkey Capital, KuCoin Ventures, Comma3 Ventures, Kronos Research, Kernel Ventures, Sandeep Nailwal.
DeFi platform for institutional-grade lending OpenTrade raised $3.2M in a Seed funding round from a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX), CMCC Global, Draper Dragon, Ryze Labs, Plassa Capital.
funding rounds
Layer-1 blockchain Monad raised $225M in a funding round led by Paradigm, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Electric Capital, Greenoaks Capital, Castle Island Ventures, eGirl Capital.
Bitcoin layer 2 network Mezo raised $21M in a Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Multicoin Capital, Hack VC, Draper Associates, ParaFi Capital, Nascent, Primitive, Asymmetric fund, DCF God.
Automated Bitcoin inscription service OrdinalsBot raised $3M in a funding round led by Digital Asset Capital Management (DACM), with participation from Eden Block, Nural Capital, WWVentures, Lightning Ventures, Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Oak Grove Ventures, UTXO Management, Kenetic, Coin Merge Strategy (CMS), Kestrel 0x1, Sora Ventures, London Real Ventures.
Blockchain-based beauty platform KIKI World raised $7M in a funding round from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z crypto), Estée Lauder New Incubation Ventures (NIV), Orange DAO, 2 Punks Capital, Advancit Capital, Red Dao, Double Down, Gmoney.
