VC Roundup: Web3 infrastructure, ‘tokenization of everything’ drawing investors

As an experienced analyst, I find the current venture capital landscape for crypto startups to be quite intriguing. With $1 billion in investments in April and 161 investment rounds, it’s evident that investors are showing renewed interest in this sector amidst the bull market. The key trends attracting venture firms include decentralized infrastructure, institutional adoption, and the tokenization of everything.

As a researcher studying the crypto industry, I’ve discovered that venture funding for startups in this sector reached an all-time high of $1 billion in April. This is the second month in a row to surpass the significant threshold of $1 billion, with a total of 161 investment rounds taking place during this period. These figures underscore the growing investor interest in the crypto market as it continues to experience a bull run.

According to Xiao Xiao, partner at HashKey Capital, notable trends piquing the interest of venture firms involve decentralized infrastructure development, facilitating institutional adoption, and the concept of ‘tokenizing all things.’ In an interview with CryptoMoon, Xiao elaborated on HashKey’s current investment focus:

“We are focusing on both primary investment and liquid investment. For primary investment, we prefer either late-stage projects, which will have liquidity very soon, or super early-stage projects, which have long-term value and target the next cycle. For liquidity investment, we will do some alternative investments like staking, with lower risk and stable return.”

HashKey focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technology as another key area. According to Xiao, advanced data analysis fueled by AI brings about more profound market understandings, superior fraud identification, and finely tuned trading plans, resulting in heightened productivity and security.

As an analyst, I’ve been closely following the latest funding news in the tech industry. Notably, Polymarket secured an impressive $70 million investment, with backing from Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Humanity Protocol also made headlines by officially joining the unicorn club after their recent successful $30 million fundraising round, which boosted their valuation.

This edition of CryptoMoon’s VC Roundup features startups that raised capital in May.

Colosseum invests $2.5M in pre-seed for accelerator program

The Colosseum, a specialized ecosystem for the Solana blockchain network, has revealed the initial group of projects that will participate in its accelerator program. These projects emerged as winners from the biggest Solana hackathon to date, known as Renaissance, which attracted 8,300 participants and 1,071 teams. Ten projects were selected from among the 34 hackathon victors, with each project receiving a pre-seed investment of $250,000. The program will culminate in a virtual Demo Day, where projects will showcase themselves to investors and engage with Colosseum’s Mentor and Founder Network. Since the initial Solana hackathon in October 2020, there has been an astounding increase of 1,522% in the number of project applications. The chosen projects include Ore, Urani, DBunker, DeCharge, Torque, Legends of the Sun, Meshmap, Blockmesh, Banger, and Rakurai.

Volta announces $4.1M seed funding for institutional smart wallet

As a crypto investor, I’m excited to share that Volta Circuit, the innovative multisignature, non-custodial smart wallet platform, has secured $4.1 million in seed funding from esteemed investors including Fika Ventures and Haven Ventures. This financial boost will be instrumental in launching our infrastructure services.

Hemera raises $2.6M for Web3 data management

Hemera announced $2.6 million in funding, led by LIF Capital and Nomad Capital, with the participation of SNZ and Chainlink. According to Hedera, angel investors in the round also included the founders of ZetaChain and Sending Labs, Wish co-founder Danny Zhang and Microsoft AI executive Harry Shum. The funds will be used to develop its decentralized protocol, which uses AI for on-chain data querying, allowing insights through a large language model (LLM) optimized for Web3. Hemera Protocol’s public beta version was recently released alongside its showcase application, SocialScan.

Zeta Markets raises $5M for Solana layer-2

Zeta Markets, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol built on the Solana blockchain for on-chain perpetuals, announced the successful completion of a strategic funding round, raising $5 million. This brings the total capital raised by the team to $13.5 million. Electric Capital spearheaded the investment, with contributions from DACM, Selini Capital, Airtree Ventures, and angel investors Anatoly Yakovenko, Mert Mumtaz, and Richard Wu, among others.

VC Roundup: Web3 infrastructure, ‘tokenization of everything’ drawing investors

Moso secures $2M for e-commerce, crypto integration

As a crypto investor and user, I’m excited to share that Moso, a groundbreaking platform merging online shopping with cryptocurrency rewards, has recently secured $2 million in seed funding. Notable investors such as Symbolic Capital, Dao5, Coinlist, Polygon Ventures, and strategic angel investors joined this round. With over 2,000 partnerships with top retailers like Walmart, eBay, and Shopee, Moso enables users to earn cryptocurrency rewards during their regular shopping experience. I find this development particularly compelling because it simplifies access to Web3 technologies for newcomers in the space, making online shopping the familiar gateway to reap the benefits of decentralized technologies. Co-founder Blake Capozza from Moso stated, “Our platform is designed to democratize Web3 for consumers, making their engagement and advantages from decentralized technology more accessible through the relatable channel of online shopping.”

Crestal closes $2M pre-seed round

As a crypto investor, I’m excited to share that Crestal Network, the innovative Web3 startup led by Eric Chen, former head of engineering at Tron, and Marouen Zelleg, ex-business director at Polygon, has secured $2 million in pre-seed funding. The impressive list of investors includes Lingfeng Capital, Cogitent Ventures, Kyro Ventures, Veris Ventures, Smape Capital, MH Ventures, Layer Labs, Pragma Ventures, Builder Capital, NxGen.lens, Artemis Capital, and Quotient Ventures.

Zest Protocol raises $3.5M in seed funding led by Tim Draper

Zest Protocol, a Bitcoin lending protocol, announced a $3.5 million seed investment round led by Draper Associates and joined by Binance Labs, Flow Traders, Trust Machines, Asymmetric, Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Gravity Fund, Primal Capital, Hyperrithm, Mitcon Crypto, Tykhe Block Ventures, and Elixir Capital, among others. The goal of Zest Protocol is to allow Bitcoin holders to put their assets into on-chain lending markets. Using the upcoming Stacks Nakamoto and sBTC blockchain enhancements, Zest aims to deliver a distinctive Bitcoin lending experience. According to Tim Draper, “I don’t just want to hoard BTC; I want to utilize it!”

2024-05-17 01:41