Sign in Subscribe
report

Blockchain Boom: Monthly Investment Highlights

Categories

Blockchain Infrastructure

This month, the Blockchain Infrastructure category raised $15M across 10 rounds. Last month, this category saw $11M raised in 9 rounds. The current month shows a slight increase in both the amount raised and the number of rounds, indicating a growing interest in this sector.

Biggest Rounds:

  • Hylé raised $4.6M from Framework Ventures Crypto Fund, Delphi Digital, Vitalik Buterin. Hylé builds out the Hylé network, which uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) for scalability and privacy. Hylé aims to be the core layer for the modular ZK tech stack. The Hylé network runs its own consensus mechanism and is purpose-built for ZKP verification, offering developers and users options for what suits their systems.
  • Chainbound raised $2.3M from cyber Fund Crypto Fund, Maven 11 Capital, Chorus One. Chainbound is an organization dedicated to the research and development of optimized infrastructure and network tools for blockchains. The startup is working on creating a protocol called Bolt that will enable advanced pre-confirmation on Ethereum, allowing transactions to be confirmed in seconds.

Blockchain Service

This month, the Blockchain Service category raised $60M in 25 rounds. Last month, it raised $115M in 40 rounds. The current month shows a significant decrease in both the amount raised and the number of rounds, suggesting a cooling off in this sector.

Biggest Rounds:

  • Edge Matrix Chain raised $20M from Candaq, Bochsler Finance. EMC Protocol is a blockchain and peer-to-peer computing protocol with features such as smart contracts, decentralized storage, and consensus mechanisms for validating transactions. Its goal is to connect various servers, personal computers and other devices to create a decentralized computing network.
  • Space and Time raised $5M from OKX Ventures, SamsungNext. Space and Time is a key player in centralized finance, aiming to streamline and secure global financial transactions. It integrates various financial services into a single platform, enhancing operational efficiency and user experience.

CeFi

This month, the CeFi category raised $89M in 17 rounds. Last month, it raised $15M in 5 rounds. The current month shows a substantial increase in both the amount raised and the number of rounds, indicating a surge in interest and investment in centralized finance.

Biggest Rounds:

  • Airstack raised $12.16M from Moonwalker Capital. Airstack is a key player in centralized finance, aiming to streamline and secure global financial transactions. It integrates various financial services into a single platform, enhancing operational efficiency and user experience.
  • Arch raised $2.16M from Kenetic Capital, Tribe Capital. Arch is a financial services provider for crypto asset holders. Arch's mission is to provide safe, reliable and simple financial products to a new generation of alternative asset investors who have been let down by traditional financial institutions that do not meet their needs.

Chain

This month, the Chain category raised $45M in 15 rounds. Last month, it raised $19M in 7 rounds. The current month shows a notable increase in both the amount raised and the number of rounds, highlighting a growing interest in blockchain networks and protocols.

Biggest Rounds:

  • Quai Network raised $15M from Polychain Capital, Jets Capital. Quai is a scalable, EVM-compliant blockchain network that enables fast, accessible, and affordable decentralized finance. Quai's solution is based on revolutionary advances in blockchain sharding technologies and the use of Proof-of-Work 2.0.
  • Ark Labs raised $2.5M from Fulgur Ventures. Ark is a Bitcoin Layer 2 payment network designed to simplify the user experience while maintaining self-custody. Unlike the Lightning Network, Ark eliminates the need to manage payment channels or liquidity.

Currency

This month, the Currency category raised $405M in 30 rounds. Last month, it raised $304M in 29 rounds. The current month shows a significant increase in the amount raised, though the number of rounds remained relatively stable, indicating larger investments per round.

Biggest Rounds:

  • XRP raised $200M from Pantera Capital. Most people refer to XRP as a cryptocurrency. In fact, we are talking about an open payment system designed to ensure minimal participation of banks and other financial institutions in conducting transactions. While the virtual coin itself is called XRP.
  • Sentz raised $64M from Coinbase Ventures, Blocktower Capital. The Sentz rate for today - $0.456 has increased to +7.51% over the last 24 hours. The maximum Sentz rate reached $72.37 on April 6, 2021. Compared to the maximum rate, the current price of Sentz has fallen by -99.4%. There are 74.22 Million MOB in current circulation and the maximum coin supply is 250.00 Million. Sentz's market capitalization is $33.88 Million with a daily trading volume over the last 24 hours of $205.04 Thousand. The currency is traded on 4 markets and 4 exchanges. The most active exchange for trading is Gate.io. Sentz (MOB) cryptocurrency operates on its own blockchain.

DeFi

This month, the DeFi category raised $267M in 25 rounds. Last month, it raised $375M in 43 rounds. The current month shows a decrease in both the amount raised and the number of rounds, indicating a possible cooling off in the decentralized finance sector.

Biggest Rounds:

  • Polymarket raised $74M from Founders Fund, Strangelove Ventures Crypto Fund, Piers Kicks. Polymarket is a decentralized information markets platform where users can trade on highly-debated topics such as coronavirus, politics, and current events. Users can build portfolios based on their forecasts and earn returns if they're correct. Market prices reflect traders' views on future event odds, providing actionable insights for decision-making.
  • Crestal raised $25M from Brotherhood Crypto Fund, M31 Capital Crypto Fund, Paradigm. Crestal is a platform for modular services, enabling developers to discover, deploy, and upgrade services on the Crestal Blockchain. It connects decentralized providers to a verifiable Proof of Performance (PoPTM), rewarding high-quality infrastructure support for web3 developers.

GameFi

This month, the GameFi category raised $215M in 17 rounds. Last month, it raised $115M in 10 rounds. The current month shows a significant increase in both the amount raised and the number of rounds, indicating a growing interest in blockchain gaming and related technologies.

Biggest Rounds:

  • Double jump.tokyo raised $64M from Circle. Double jump.tokyo offers a program to help game developers create blockchain games. In addition to providing developers with a network, knowledge, resources and support, they also provide smart contract APIs and various systems or solutions needed to develop and market blockchain-based games.
  • Nectar AI raised $3.9M from Maelstrom, Synergis. Nectar is a generative AI platform that allows you to create your own AI girlfriend or boyfriend! For this purpose, the product is divided into “Image Creation” and “Roleplay”.

Meme

This month, the Meme category raised $45M in 8 rounds. Last month, it raised $30M in 15 rounds. The current month shows an increase in the amount raised but a decrease in the number of rounds, indicating larger investments per project in this quirky sector.

Biggest Rounds:

  • SHIBA INU raised $12M from Animoca Brands. Shiba Inu (SHIB) was launched in August 2020 by an anonymous creator under the username "Ryoshi". The project was originally created as an experiment in building a decentralized community and was inspired by the popularity of Dogecoin, but sought to take the concept further by emphasizing community engagement and decentralization. Unlike many other cryptocurrencies, SHIB launched with a massive total supply of one quadrillion tokens, which contributed to its low price per token and appeal as a meme.
  • Milady Meme Coin raised $6M from DWF Labs. Milady Coin (LADYS) is a meme token on the Ethereum blockchain created by enthusiasts of the Milady Maker NFT collection.

NFT

This month, the NFT category raised $28M in 6 rounds. Last month, it raised $30M in 7 rounds. The current month shows a slight decrease in both the amount raised and the number of rounds, indicating a stable but slightly cooling market for NFTs.

Biggest Rounds:

  • Kiosk raised $7.1M from Sora Ventures, The Spartan Group Crypto Fund. Kiosk is an innovative NFT marketplace that emphasizes transparency and user empowerment, leveraging advanced technology to enhance the NFT experience.
  • Mintify raised $5M from Amber Group. Mintify is an advanced trading platform for NFT trading with a robust execution engine and access to extensive historical data for better trading analytics. It offers three ranking methods for assessing the rarity and value of NFTs, including a proprietary scoring method, the Jaccard Index for unique comparisons, and Rarity Sniper Rankings for curated rarity scores. These tools help traders make informed decisions based on rarity, a critical aspect of NFT trading that affects perceived value.

Social

This month, the Social category raised $195M in 9 rounds. Last month, it raised $115M in 13 rounds. The current month shows a substantial increase in the amount raised, though the number of rounds decreased, indicating larger investments per project in the social sector.

Biggest Rounds:

  • Story Protocol raised $124M from Balaji Srinivasan, Hashed Fund. Story Protocol's mission is to unleash a completely new way to create, manage and license intellectual property online, ultimately forming the "Story Lego" ecosystem. Story Protocol provides a streamlined framework for managing the entire intellectual property development lifecycle, providing features such as provenance tracking, seamless licensing, and revenue sharing.
  • Soulbound raised $6M from Genblock Capital. Soulbound is an innovative ecosystem that brings together social networks and GameFi. Its goal is to reimagine the gamer reputation by creating a cross-game platform that improves player acquisition, engagement and retention.

Stablecoin

This month, the Stablecoin category raised $15M in 5 rounds. Last month, it raised $10M in 3 rounds. The current month shows an increase in both the amount raised and the number of rounds, indicating a growing interest in stablecoins.

Biggest Rounds:

  • Level raised $3.6M from Polychain Capital Crypto Fund. Tier is a stablecoin based on USD re-stake tokens. These tokens are created when someone stakes a dollar-denominated token (such as USDC or USDT) in re-staking protocols comparable to EigenLayer in order to receive the re-staking income. This profitability is translated into tokens, including ensuring the safety of other air conditioners.
  • StablR raised $1.1M from Global Coin Research. StablR is a European stablecoin company that issues EurR to provide liquidity to the DeFi and CeFi markets, ultimately attracting more users to the crypto ecosystem.

Most Active Investors

Coinbase Ventures participated in 6 rounds, making it the most active investor in this space. Their focus last week was on categories such as DeFi, CeFi and Blockchain Infrastructure.

In second place is Pantera Capital with 4 rounds, their focus was on DeFi and Blockchain Infrastructure.

And finally Circle who invested in 3 different rounds, focusing on CeFi and Blockchain Infrastructure.

Read next