(5.25–5.31) Investment and Financing Weekly Report | A total of 37 public investment and financing events, with infrastructure and DeFi leading, and active game financing

This week, there are 3 financing rounds over ten million dollars:

The Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon completed a $70 million financing round, with investors including Paradigm, Polychain, and others.

The cross-chain liquidity aggregator Chainge Finance completed a $13 million financing round, with investors including GEM DigitalAl, Alpha Token Capital, and others.

The Farcaster development platform Neynar completed an $11 million Series A financing round, with investors including Haun Ventures, a16z, and others.

This week, the investment and financing heat in the crypto market has increased compared to last week, with 13 deals in infrastructure, 9 in DeFi, and gaming financing following. This week’s financing landscape is rich and diverse, concentrated in currently popular sectors. The Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon secured the largest financing this week. Neynar, the ecological development platform of the previously largest financing project Farcaster, also received over ten million dollars in financing this week.

This week’s investment and financing projects sorted by financing amount are shown in the figure below:

Infrastructure

1. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 31, Mint completed a $5 million seed round financing, with investors including Mask Network, SNZ Holding, and others. Mint is an L2 focused on NFTs, with its core value in driving and realizing innovations in NFT protocol standards, guiding developers to adopt NFT assets on a large scale in real business scenarios. This includes but is not limited to AIGC, PASS, gaming, RWA, reputation systems, membership systems, identity systems, and other fields.

2. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 20, Neynar completed an $11 million Series A financing round, with investors including Haun Ventures, a16z, and others. Neynar is the simplest way to build on Farcaster, allowing developers to use Neynar's infrastructure to develop building blocks for the Farcaster protocol. The Neynar API can be used to read and write Farcaster data (profiles, casts, feeds, etc.).

3. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 30, ARPA completed a $6 million strategic financing round, with investors including DeFiance Capital, Animoca Brands, and others. ARPA is a decentralized secure computing network aimed at enhancing the fairness, security, and privacy of blockchain. The ARPA threshold BLS signature network serves as a verifiable random number generator (RNG), secure wallet, cross-chain bridge, and decentralized hosting infrastructure across multiple blockchains.

4. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 30, Babylon completed a $70 million financing round, with investors including Paradigm, Polychain, and others. Babylon is a layer1 blockchain founded by Stanford University Professor David Tse. The mission of the project is to bring unparalleled security of Bitcoin to all PoS blockchains without any additional energy costs. The team consists of researchers from Stanford University, experienced developers, and seasoned business advisors.

5. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 30, Marketnode completed a Series A financing round with an unknown amount, with investors including Temasek, HSBC, and others. Marketnode, founded by the Singapore Exchange Group and Temasek, is a DLT-driven financial market infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region. Marketnode operates two flagship platforms: Gateway and Fundnode. Gateway is a one-stop, end-to-end platform that enables market participants to accelerate workflows, shorten time to market, and fully leverage the transformative potential of tokenization. Fundnode is a blockchain investment fund infrastructure in Singapore, providing a single platform for trade management, fund processing, and record-keeping for the fund ecosystem.

6. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 29, Play AI completed a $4.3 million seed round financing, with investors including P2 Ventures, MH Ventures, and others. Play AI is a modular blockchain designed to provide developers with high-quality data and infrastructure to deploy AI agents and models while incentivizing users to share their gaming data for training AI models. Play AI leverages blockchain to securely and transparently provide access to various high-quality datasets—offering computation and verification through existing nodes.

7. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 29, API3 completed a $4 million strategic financing round, with investors including DWF Labs, Spartan Group, and others. API3 is an oracle solution that allows smart contracts to access real-world data. Using Airnode, API data can be queried from the blockchain without the need for specialized node operators as intermediaries.

8. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 29, Lumoz completed a strategic financing round with an unknown amount, with investors including Gate Ventures, EVG, and others. Lumoz is a decentralized ZK-RaaS (ZKRollup-as-a-Service) network featuring zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) mining, combining proof of stake (PoS) and proof of work (PoW) in an innovative approach that allows Web3 developers to quickly generate zkEVM application chains with just a click.

9. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 29, ZTLment completed a €2.4 million pre-seed round financing, with investors including PreSeed Ventures, Upfin, and others. ZTLment is a compliant wallet infrastructure project for decentralized fiat currency transfers, addressing long-standing challenges faced by ordering and reservation platforms, including automating cash flow, enhancing payment transparency, and maintaining regulatory compliance.

10. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 29, El Dorado completed a $3 million seed round financing, with investors including Multicoin Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and others. El Dorado is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency wallet that allows users to make cross-border payments and earn additional income through stablecoin transactions. Founded in 2020, El Dorado operates in Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, Brazil, and Panama, facilitating stablecoin transactions.

11. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 28, OpenSocial completed a $5 million seed round financing, with investors including SNZ Holding, Portal Ventures, and others. OpenSocial is a multi-chain SocialFi infrastructure that provides truly scalable and composable protocols for web3 users, creators, and developers, powering the future multi-chain SocialFi ecosystem.

12. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 28, Switchboard completed a $7.5 million Series A financing round, with investors including Tribe Capital, RockawayX, and others. Switchboard is a permissionless, customizable, multi-chain oracle protocol for general data feeds and verifiable randomness. By allowing anyone to push any form of data, regardless of data type, it provides a one-stop service for users and helps drive the development of the next generation of decentralized applications.

13. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 27, NodeOps completed a $5 million seed round financing, with investors including L1D, Bitscale Capital, and others. NodeOps provides a one-stop node deployment solution for node infrastructure and related communities. NodeOps is one of the first active validation services (AVS) to build permissionless incentive systems on-chain, creating value capture engines for operators, developers, and protocols within the ecosystem.

DeFi

1. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 31, Stable Jack completed a $1 million angel round financing, with unknown investors. Stable Jack offers yield-bearing stablecoins, volatile AVAX tokens, and stable asset trading products, emphasizing capital efficiency, no liquidation risk, and no centralization risk for yield-bearing stablecoins. Volatile AVAX tokens provide DeFi composability without financing costs or liquidation risks. Stable asset trading promotes unilateral liquidity supply.

2. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 30, Skolem completed a merger financing round, with investors including Talos. Skolem is a full-stack DeFi platform providing data and trade execution services for decentralized finance markets, enabling institutions to participate directly in DeFi markets.

3. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 29, Fortunafi completed a $3.16 million strategic financing round, with investors including Shima Capital, Manifold Trading, and others. Fortunafi is an on-chain financial institution providing integrated liquidity solutions for traditional entities and stablecoin issuers. Fortunafi offers higher-yield investment products through the acquisition, aggregation, and securitization of on-chain real-world assets (RWA).

4. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 29, Smart Transactions completed a $5.5 million seed round financing, with investors including Hack VC, Shima Capital, and others. Smart Transactions (STXN) is a trading creation and execution framework operated by decentralized resolvers. With smart trading, users can set precise conditions to determine when or how to execute trades, allowing for better control over the timing and conditions of trades.

5. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 28, defi.money completed a financing round with an unknown amount, with investors including Morningstar Ventures, GBV Capital, and others. defi.money is a stablecoin liquidity layer. It is an authorized reconstruction of crvUSD but natively cross-chain, focusing on L2s. The protocol can essentially interoperate with any EVM, allowing users to move $MONEY across any chain and lock weighted tokens.

6. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 28, Parasail completed a $4 million seed round financing, with investors including Protocol Labs, MH Ventures, and others. Repl is a re-staking protocol for staking DePIN assets. It aims to enhance the efficiency of DePIN token locking, eliminate specific risks among DePIN service providers, and reduce the complexity of obtaining DePIN protocol rewards.

7. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 28, Anzen completed a $4 million seed round financing, with investors including Mechanism Capital, Infinity Ventures Crypto, and others. Anzen is a decentralized lending platform aimed at bringing stability to the DeFi space and providing more use cases for stablecoins. Users can lend on the platform to earn yields backed by real-world assets (RWA). Loans are secured by tangible, appreciating assets, providing lenders with predictable income streams linked to RWA performance.

8. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 27, Chainge Finance completed a $13 million financing round, with investors including GEM DigitalAl, Alpha Token Capital, and others. Chainge Finance is a cross-chain liquidity aggregator. Chainge provides various crypto management tools, such as a cross-chain wallet that integrates over 24 EVM and non-EVM compatible chains, allowing users to seamlessly trade, send, and receive crypto assets across networks, custodial modules, top DEX aggregators, futures DEX, and the first decentralized Options DEX—all supported and secured by innovative Fusion DCRM technology.

9. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 27, HMX completed a strategic financing round with an unknown amount, with investors including Finlink Capital, 99 Capital, and others. HMX is a decentralized perpetual contract and spot exchange where users can open long or short positions with up to 88x leverage, with no slippage. Users can also become market makers for HMX traders by depositing eligible assets into the PLP fund, which serves as liquidity for HMX leveraged and spot traders.

Gaming

1. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 31, TRALA completed a $5 million financing round, with investors including Animoca Brands, zkSync, and others. TRALA is a global Web3 gaming integration platform with over 10 popular games and a user base of 400 million, along with global marketing channels across continents.

2. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 31, NexGami completed a $2.5 million seed round financing, with investors including Metalpha, HTX Ventures, and others. NexGami is a Web3 esports game. In the virtual world of Metavirus, technology and equipment can visualize viruses while transforming the entire reality into a world of swords and magic.

3. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 30, Zentry completed a strategic financing round with an unknown amount, with investors including DWF Labs, Spartan Group, and others. GuildFi will rebrand to Zentry in April 2024. The core idea of Zentry is to build a gaming superlayer that spans the digital and real worlds, driven by a series of uniquely vertically integrated stacks, including consumer-facing applications, diverse IP, and blockchain infrastructure, which are currently being steadily constructed. In this universe created by Zentry, the real world and countless digital realms will coexist, merging reality and virtuality to give rise to a new entertainment economy.

4. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 30, Kuroro Beasts completed a $2.5 million strategic financing round, with investors including Animoca Brands, Sanctor Capital, and others. Kuroro Beasts is a multidimensional gaming ecosystem. Kuroro Island serves as the backdrop for a constantly evolving world where beasts with elemental powers roam freely. Here, trainers from around the world begin to explore, collect, craft, battle, and master elements. Kuroro Beasts is re-launching the development of Beast Brawl, a web-based PvP battle game (similar to Pokemon battles).

5. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 29, MetaToken completed a $5 million private placement financing round, with unknown investors. MetaToken is an immersive casino that leverages Web3 technology to disrupt the current gambling experience. MetaToken shares its potential on-chain profits with players who invest in its $MTK token liquidity pool and burns 50% of player losses to reduce token supply.

6. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 28, Chainmonsters completed a merger financing round, with investors including Spielworks. Chainmonsters is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game where players can capture, battle, trade, explore, and combine different types of monsters and abilities to create powerful chain reactions that fuse elements to defeat opponents.

7. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 28, Supervillain Labs completed a $4.5 million seed round financing, with investors including Aptos, Intella X, and others. Supervillain Labs is a Web3 game studio focused on developing socially interactive games, covering a range of genres from hyper-casual to MMORPG, dedicated to leading the development of Web3 games and creating technologically advanced and enjoyable gaming experiences.

Social

1. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 30, Pakt completed a $750,000 seed round financing, with investors including Avalanche Foundation, Chorus One, and others. Pakt is a protocol that provides an incentive-driven complete "blockchain business stack," enabling businesses (from entrepreneurs to institutions) to establish operations on-chain in 10 minutes for $30.

2. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 29, Beoble completed a financing round with an unknown amount, with investors including Ripple Ventures. Beoble is a communication infrastructure and ecosystem that allows users to chat between wallets. Its products include a web-based chat application and a toolkit that allows Dapps to integrate.

CeFi

1. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 29, SCRYPT Digital completed a $5 million strategic financing round, with investors including FunFair Ventures, Braza Bank, and others. Scrypt is a crypto asset financial service provider based in Zurich, Switzerland, focusing on institutional-grade crypto asset services. The company handles billions of dollars in trading volume, providing comprehensive crypto services for institutions and Web3 companies, including trading, custody, and staking.

RWA

1. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 31, Plural completed a $2.3 million pre-seed round financing, with investors including Compound VC, Necessary Ventures, and others. Plural connects solar and wind energy developers with investors through blockchain, allowing people to invest in solar power plants, wind farms, and battery storage projects for as little as $10.

Others

1. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 29, Aperture Finance completed a $6.7 million Series A financing round, with investors including SNZ Holding, Skyland Ventures, and others. Aperture Finance is an intent-driven solver network that combines AI with Intent, building a new type of chatbot supported by underlying Intent infrastructure, enabling users to "declare their goals" in natural language and leverage the solver network for better execution and pricing.

2. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 28, Cookie3 completed a financing round with an unknown amount, with investors including SkyVision Capital. Cookie3 is building a MarketingFi platform and Web3 AI marketing solution that connects projects with the right audience, creating profitable opportunities for both sides. Cookie3 uses off-chain and on-chain analytics as well as a Web3 AI data layer to ensure that only valuable users and projects interact to benefit from the MarketingFi ecosystem. In an economy where the boundaries between business owners, investors, and consumers become blurred, effective marketing becomes collaborative, and value flows freely among all stakeholders.

3. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 28, Coinflow completed a $2.25 million seed round financing, with investors including CMT Digital, DCG, and others. Coinflow is a payment solution that allows Web3 companies to accept traditional payment methods and pay their customers from cryptocurrency to USD in their traditional bank accounts. Coinflow's main use case is to help games, NFT projects, wallets, and similar Web3 products attract non-crypto-native customers through familiar, more traditional payment processes while Coinflow handles all the underlying infrastructure behind the scenes.

4. According to ROOTDATA investment and financing data on May 28, GaiaNet completed a $10 million seed round financing, with investors including Mirana Ventures, Mantle Network, and others. GaiaNet is a decentralized network providing secure, censorship-resistant, and monetizable AI agents that integrate everyone's proprietary knowledge and skills while preserving privacy. GaiaNet does not establish centralized servers but builds a distributed network of edge computing nodes controlled by individuals and enterprises to host fine-tuned AI models based on the proprietary domain knowledge and expertise of node operators.