Funding Weekly: 48 deals raised approximately $260 million, with exchanges and GameFi being the hottest sectors
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
Funding Weekly: 48 deals raised approximately $260 million, with exchanges and GameFi being the hottest sectors
Between March 18 and March 24, 13 blockchain projects raised over $5 million each.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy TechFlow
According to RootData, 48 blockchain startups raised a total of $261.23 million between March 18 and March 24.
Projects that raised over $5 million include:
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Digital asset derivatives trading platform Kemet Trading announced it has raised $5 million;
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Self-custodial cryptocurrency exchange Rails announced a $6.2 million seed round;
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Web3 infrastructure company Succinct announced $55 million in seed and Series A funding;
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Web3 privacy system Espresso Systems completed a $28 million Series B round;
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Moondance Labs, developer of the appchain infrastructure protocol Tanssi Network, announced a $6 million strategic investment;
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Web3 infrastructure Mystiko Network closed an $18 million seed round;
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Ethereum L2 Morph announced $20 million in seed and angel funding;
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Cathedral Studios, developer of the FPS horror game The Bornless, completed a $6.66 million seed round;
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RWA L1 protocol MANTRA announced a new $11 million funding round;
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Crypto compliance platform Keyring completed a $6 million seed round;
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Singapore-based crypto exchange Tokenize Xchange announced $11.5 million in funding;
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Cryptocurrency, stock, and alternative investment platform Figure Markets raised $60 million in Series A funding;
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Blockchain payments company Zone announced an $8.5 million seed round.
Highlighted Projects
Succinct
Overview: Succinct is building a decentralized prover network so anyone can create blockchain applications and infrastructure secured by cryptographic facts rather than trust. Succinct unifies the proof supply chain, offering highly available proof generation infrastructure and best-in-class pricing for rollups, coprocessors, and other applications using zero-knowledge proofs.
Investors: Web3 infrastructure firm Succinct raised $55 million in seed and Series A funding, led by Paradigm, with participation from Robot Ventures, Bankless Ventures, Geometry, ZK Validator, Sreeram Kannan (Eigenlayer), Sandeep Nailwal and Daniel Lubarov (Polygon), and Elad Gil.
Features:
1. Succinct’s Prover Network and SP1 enable high-performance general-purpose ZK without complex infrastructure deployment. The Succinct Prover Network is a hosted infrastructure layer allowing any application to outsource proof generation for open-source proof systems. SP1 is the first open-source zkVM enabling developers to write Rust without sacrificing performance;
2. Teams like Celestia, Wormhole, Lido, Avail, Near, and Gnosis are already using Succinct’s infrastructure to build ZK-powered applications;
3. Backed by Paradigm, signaling strong investor validation.
Tensorplex Labs
Overview: Tensorplex Labs is building powerful, open technologies to drive a decentralized AI ecosystem. By leveraging principles from DeFi and proof-of-stake networks, it focuses on creating foundational infrastructure for open-source AI development and applications. Its strategy includes utilizing decentralized AI networks like Bittensor and developing novel mechanisms to accelerate adoption and capability in decentralized AI.
Investors: Web3 AI startup Tensorplex Labs raised $3 million in seed funding, co-led by Canonical Crypto and Collab+Currency, with participation from Digital Currency Group (DCG), Quantstamp, Amber Group, and others.
Features:
1. Tensorplex Labs launched stTAO, a liquid staking token for Bittensor (TAO). Within one month of launch, stTAO’s total value locked exceeded $12 million;
2. Has collected $80 million worth of TAO delegated to validators and built a Web3 research platform powered by Bittensor;
3. Preparing to launch a Bittensor subnet soon.
GAM3S.GG
Overview: GAM3S.GG (formerly Polkastarter Gaming) is a Web3 gaming content platform aiming to onboard gamers into web3 through game discovery, content, live streaming, community events, and more. The GAM3S.GG super app simplifies user experience, offers early access opportunities, curates content highlighting trending web3 games, removes entry barriers for newcomers, enables unprecedented interaction with favorite blockchain games, and provides extensive guides and fair reviews.
Investors: Web3 gaming information platform GAM3S.GG raised $2 million in strategic funding. Investors include Merit Circle, WWVentures, Cogitent Ventures, P2 Ventures, Cypher Capital, Acheron, Basics Capital, OIG Capital, BreederDAO, MetaBros, Hercules Ventures, BasementDAO, and notable angel investors such as Sandeep Nailwal (co-founder of Polygon), Gabby Dizon (co-founder of YGG), Jiho Zirlin (co-founder of Sky Mavis & Ronin), and Giulio Xiloyannis (co-founder of LiquidX).
Features:
1. GAM3S.GG plans to hold a G3 token generation event in early April. The $G3 token will unlock exclusive platform features, gaming rewards, access to upcoming game tokens, and other utilities;
2. GAM3S.GG will distribute 50 million $G3 tokens in three phases via airdrop to reward early users active over the past 1.5 years; the first snapshot has been taken;
3. GAM3S.GG hosts a library of over 350 games, with more than 80 playable directly through the browser on its platform.
Detailed Funding Information by Sector:
Bitcoin Ecosystem
Taproot asset issuance protocol Flash Protocol announced investment from Rarestone Ventures, amount undisclosed. Using FlashVM, Flash Protocol will support asset issuance and DeFi (staking, swaps, lending) on Bitcoin.
Bitcoin gaming ecosystem project TREX20 announced a $1 million raise, with participation from Normie Capital, Marshland Capital, Moonrock Capital, Oddiyana Ventures, TripleGemCapital, NxGen.xyz, X21 Capital, and Nabais Capital. TREX20 stated it is ready to launch its native token via Launchpad, aiming to support a gaming ecosystem based on the Bitcoin blockchain, and will also build an autonomous BRC20 NFT marketplace.
OpenStamp, a one-stop service platform built on the STAMP protocol, raised seed funding at a $50 million valuation, co-led by Animoca Ventures and KuCoin Ventures. Participating investors include MH Ventures, VitalTao Capital, Lotus Capital, Brotherhood Ventures, Blue Node Capital, D64 Ventures, Luminescence Capital, Spicy Capital, Halvings Capital, SPEC Capital, and YM Capital. OpenStamp plans to revolutionize Bitcoin transactions with its upcoming BTC Layer 2 solution, leveraging Nervos CKB’s breakthrough technology and the RGB++ protocol via the UTXO Stack based on CKB.
BTC Layer 2 public chain project AINN Layer2 announced multi-million dollar investment from several BTC ecosystem institutions, including Waterdrip Capital, Satoshi Lab, Foundinals Lab, Monday Capital, AlNN Labs, Bitrise Capital, Genblock Capital, AscendEx, Cipholio Ventures, and key opinion leaders and partners from top-tier financial institutions in the BTC ecosystem. AINN Layer2 is reportedly the first BTC Layer 2 supporting large-scale Web3 AI applications, aiming to continuously develop Web3 AI infrastructure and foster integration between Web3 and AI.
DeFi
U.S.-based fintech company Figure Technologies announced the formation of an independent entity, Figure Markets, for investors to trade various blockchain-native assets including cryptocurrencies, stocks, and alternative investments. Figure Markets raised $60 million in Series A funding, led by Jump Crypto, Pantera Capital, and Lightspeed Faction. Other participants include Distributed Global, Ribbit Capital, and CMT Digital. Figure stated it is also working on a registered security alternative to stablecoins for use within its ecosystem.
Customizable interoperability infrastructure Entangle announced a strategic investment from Consensys on X.
Blast ecosystem DeFi project Juice raised $1 million in new funding, with participation from Arthur Hayes, Delphi Digital, DWF Ventures, Spencer, and others, bringing total funding to $7 million.
Smart money protocol Umoja raised $2 million in a seed plus round, with participation from Coinbase, 500 Global, Quantstamp, Blockchain Founders Fund, Orange DAO, Hyperithm, Psalion, and Avalanche’s Blizzard Fund. Umoja aims to democratize access to its smart money protocol, which offers automated investment strategies enabling tokens to self-trade, hedge against market volatility, and optimize yields.
Arbitrum-based money market and decentralized exchange protocol Dolomite announced a $900,000 strategic investment, with participation from Sandeep Nailwal (co-founder of Polygon), Marc Boiron (CEO of Polygon Labs), DCF GOD, and DeFi Dad.
Manta Network ecosystem L3 project Gull Network announced a strategic raise, with GBV Capital, Banter Capital, Moonrock Capital, Marshland Capital, X21 Digital, Oddiyana Ventures, and Nabais Capital participating.
Berachain ecosystem trading aggregator Ooga Booga raised $1 million at a $10 million valuation. Investment details remain undisclosed, and Ooga Booga has not yet launched on the Berachain mainnet.
Perpetual contracts trading platform KiloEx received a strategic investment from Foresight Ventures. To date, KiloEx has also received backing from Binance Labs, Crescendo Ventures, Manta Network, 7UP DAO, Poolz Finance, GTS Ventures, and several angel investors.
One-click AI-powered crypto perpetual trading DEX platform Rollie Finance announced a seed round with participation from Animoca Ventures (under Animoca Brands), M77 Ventures, Sandy Peng (co-founder of Scroll), Alex Lee (founder of Wombat Exchange), and Kate Wong (COO of RSS3). Amount undisclosed. Rollie Finance targets mobile users, providing AI-driven trading suggestions based on real-time on-chain data. New funds will enhance its AI trading algorithms.
On-chain token distribution and cash flow solution Sablier raised $4.5 million in seed funding, with participation from A Capital, Fenbushi Capital, WAGMI Ventures, GD1 web3, Cyfrin, DCV, Founderheads, and angel investors Daniel Bar, Ben Middleton, Evan Van Ness, David Iach, and Ari Barmat. Additionally, Sablier announced support from the a16z crypto accelerator program, amount undisclosed.
L1
Alpha MBM Investments Group announced investment in L1 blockchain Venom Blockchain to lead digital currency initiatives in Africa, focusing on countries like Uganda, Somalia, and the Central African Republic.
L2
Ethereum L2 Morph announced $20 million in seed and angel funding, led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Pantera Capital, Foresight Ventures, The Spartan Group, MEXC Ventures, Symbolic Capital, Public Works, MH Ventures, Everyrealm, founders from Polygon, Manta, Galxe, Sei, Nansen, Story Protocol, and KOLs including Icebergy, MoonOverlord, NaniXBT, and Dingaling. Morph plans to use the funds to accelerate team growth, boost developer incentives, and expand marketing. Morph is built on three core technologies: decentralized sequencer, Optimistic zkEVM integration, and modular design.
Web3 privacy system Espresso Systems raised $28 million in Series B funding, led by a16z. This brings Espresso’s total funding above $60 million. The company did not disclose its latest valuation. Espresso is building a shared sequencing marketplace, allowing rollups to auction block-building rights.
AI
Web3 AI startup Tensorplex Labs raised $3 million in seed funding, co-led by Canonical Crypto and Collab+Currency, with participation from Digital Currency Group (DCG), Quantstamp, Amber Group, and others. Funds will be used to develop decentralized AI infrastructure.
DePIN compute proof protocol Cluster Protocol announced completion of seed and strategic funding rounds, with Pivot Ventures participating. Amount undisclosed. Cluster Protocol will also join Pivot’s incubation acceleration program.
RWA
RWA L1 protocol MANTRA announced $11 million in new funding, led by Shorooq Partners, with participation from Three Point Capital, Forte Securities, Caladan, Virtuzone, Hex Trust, Token Bay Capital, GameFi Ventures, Mapleblock, Fuse Capital, and 280 Capital. Funds will be used to build compliant infrastructure, support developers, and expand RWA tokenization.
GameFi
Web3 action RPG Crystals of Naramunz developer Crypto Rogue Games raised $1.5 million in seed funding, led by Avalanche and Merit Circle, with SNZ, CoinFund, and Lyrik Ventures participating. Funds will accelerate development of the blockchain RPG "Crystals of Naramunz".
Square Enix, developer of Final Fantasy, announced investment in Web3 gaming launch platform HyperPlay, and will release its original Ethereum NFT game "Symbiogenesis" on the platform. HyperPlay declined to disclose the investment amount, calling it a "strategic funding" round. Symbiogenesis, launched last December, is a narrative RPG adventure built around Ethereum NFT characters, with many in-game items also tokenized on Polygon. Symbiogenesis will join HyperPlay as part of the collaboration.
Avalanche ecosystem action social deduction game Castle of Blackwater secured a $1 million strategic investment from Metrics Ventures, 3Commas Capital, and Faculty Group. Castle of Blackwater is now prepared for further development.
Web3 space-themed game Nebula Revelation announced a new funding round, with participation from DWF Labs, Waterdrip Capital, Central Research, Stratified Capital, and CapsuleX Labs.
Web3 gaming information platform GAM3S.GG raised $2 million in strategic funding from Merit Circle, WWVentures, Cogitent Ventures, P2 Ventures, Cypher Capital, Acheron, Basics Capital, OIG Capital, BreederDAO, MetaBros, Hercules Ventures, BasementDAO, and notable angels including Sandeep Nailwal (Polygon), Gabby Dizon (YGG), Jiho Zirlin (Sky Mavis & Ronin), and Giulio Xiloyannis (LiquidX). The project plans to launch its native $G3 token. A token generation event in early April will distribute $G3 globally to web3 gamers via public sale and airdrops.
FPS horror game The Bornless developer Cathedral Studios completed a $6.66 million seed round led by Arca, with Hartmann Capital, LiquidX, IVC, and 6th Man & Spartan participating. Led by CEO Toby Saunders, the game is set in the mysterious town of Falmouth, immersing players in a world where demonic entities collide with humanity. Its new "Ritual" mode blends extraction, survival horror, and strategy, steeped in legend and terror.
SocialFi
Web3 incentive layer protocol Metaverse HQ tweeted it raised $1.1 million in seed funding, co-led by Consensys and Polygon. Funds will simplify and incentivize Web3 experiences, drive partnerships with Blast, Magic Eden, Flow, and Berachain, and introduce protocols and incentives via quests.
Blast ecosystem SocialFi project EarlyFans developer Atticc Labs raised $1.5 million in seed funding, with participation from Alliance DAO, SNZ Holding, GSR, Zee Prime Capital, GBV Capital, ProDigital Future Fund, Alchemy Ventures, CyberConnect, Suji Yan (founder of Mask Network), Ryan Li (co-founder of CyberConnect), Jademont (partner at Waterdrip Capital), and angel investors 0xminion, angel, icebergy, naniXBT, toptickcrypto, Zeneca. Funds will support EarlyFans' product launch and promotion.
Decentralized social trading protocol Bi.social raised $3 million, with participation from Web3Vision, WAGMi Ventures, and QF Capital. Funds will support ongoing development and upcoming features.
NFT & Metaverse
EMURGO announced a strategic investment in NMKR to support NMKR's expansion, including building a new tokenization launchpad optimized for enterprise-issued compliant security tokens, upgrading tokenization tools and features, expanding its global team, and other goals.
Web3 digital content verification platform Bitbrand raised $500,000, with participation from Hustle Fund, Side Door Ventures, and GFR Fund. This marks the project’s first external funding. Bitbrand uses Web3 tech to verify digital content, offering utility for fashion, art, and luxury consumers.
South Korean metaverse platform Carrieverse announced a new funding round with Dubai-based crypto VC Alpha Token Capital investing and forming a strategic partnership. Amount undisclosed. Alpha Token Capital will invest in Carrieverse’s virtual asset CVTX, the governance token of Web3 gaming platform Cling. This marks Alpha Token Capital’s first investment in the South Korean token market.
UAE-based NFT liquidity solution and gamified marketplace Eesee announced investment and partnership with Animoca Brands. As part of the collaboration, Animoca Brands will provide industry expertise and connections to support Eesee’s goal of improving digital asset transaction efficiency and experience in Web3. Eesee allows users to make micro-bets on assets like cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and RWAs.
Digital ownership project Asterix, based on the DN404 NFT protocol, announced a strategic round with participation from Coinseeker.co, ARC, CRYPTONITE CAPITAL, Arcane Group, Liquidx Studio, DeFi Capital, Everest Ventures Group, Momentum 6, Hashed, and others. Amount undisclosed. Asterix is led by @optimizoor, creator of ERC-721a and head of sound.xyz. ERC-721a improved ERC-721 by significantly reducing gas costs when minting multiple NFTs in one transaction. New funds will support its vision to redefine the possibilities of DN404.
Polygon-based streaming app SAVAGE raised $1.5 million in seed funding, led by Faculty Group, with participation from Polygon Ventures, Morningstar Ventures, and Ash Crypto. SAVAGE currently partners with Samsung to deliver high-quality photos and videos in Web3. Its smart TV app enables IRL display connectivity and uploads across any market.
Sports metaverse project Gameplanxrbu completed a seed round led by P2 Ventures, Emchain, OXFUN, and Double Peak. Amount undisclosed.
Decentralized autonomous organization BottoDAO, focused on digital art NFTs, announced a $1.67 million raise via treasury OTC sale, led by 1kx, with participation from Collab+Currency and Variant Fund. BottoDAO has built a community-governed, decentralized, autonomous artist community. New funds will accelerate R&D to enhance Botto’s agency, autonomy, and decentralization, and plan to establish a decentralized governance framework using decentralized feedback to fine-tune LLMs in art history to “guide” Botto and shape artistic identity—advancing Botto’s autonomy in realizing artistic intent.
Infrastructure & Tools
Web3 infrastructure Mystiko Network raised $18 million in seed funding, led by Sequoia Capital India/SEA (now Peak XV Partners), with participation from Samsung Next, Hashkey, Mirana, Signum, Coinlist, Naval Ravikant, Sandeep Nailwal, Gokul Rajaram, Tribe Capital, and Morningstar Ventures. Mystiko SDK is a universal ZK SDK offering scalability, interoperability, privacy, and AI for every blockchain/dapp.
Moondance Labs, developer of the appchain infrastructure protocol Tanssi Network, announced a $6 million strategic investment, co-led by Scytale Digital, KR1, and SNZ, with participation from Arrington Capital, Borderless Capital, Hypersphere, Blockchain Founders Fund, YBB, and angel investor Gavin Wood. Funds will expand the Moondance Labs team and further develop Tanssi. Tanssi also plans to launch an incentivized testnet campaign.
Web3 infrastructure company Succinct announced $55 million in seed and Series A funding on X, led by Paradigm, with participation from Robot Ventures, Bankless Ventures, Geometry, ZK Validator, Sreeram Kannan (Eigenlayer), Sandeep Nailwal and Daniel Lubarov (Polygon), and Elad Gil. Succinct’s Prover Network and SP1 enable high-performance general ZK without complex infrastructure. The Succinct Prover Network is a hosted infrastructure layer allowing any application to outsource proof generation for open-source proof systems.
On-chain gaming infrastructure project ZKasino announced a Series A round at a $350 million valuation, amount undisclosed, with participation from MEXC, Big Brain Holdings, Trading_axe, Pentoshi, and Sisyphus. ZKasino Chain is an Ethereum-based dedicated GambleFi rollup leveraging the EigenDA-secured ZK stack. The chain holds potential reserves accessible to anyone using its native VRF. ZKasino’s initial dApp generated $8 million in revenue during its first year.
Account abstraction-enabled wallet Plena Finance received a strategic investment from Pivot.
CeFi and Others
Blockchain payments company Zone announced an $8.5 million seed round, led by Flourish Ventures and TLcom Capital, with participation from Digital Money Group (DCG), VKAV (Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures), and Alter Global. Zone is Africa’s first decentralized payment network. Its Layer-1 blockchain digitizes fiat payments and enables transition to digital currencies while connecting financial institutions to a broader payment ecosystem.
Singapore-based crypto exchange Tokenize Xchange announced $11.5 million in funding, with Trive participating. This brings its Series A total to $23 million, with plans to raise $33 million by end of 2024. Tokenize plans to grow its Singapore workforce fivefold in the next 18 months, hiring heavily in compliance and operations.
London-based crypto compliance platform Keyring completed a $6 million seed round to expand its on-chain compliance platform. Gumi Cryptos Capital and Greenfield Capital led, with participation from Motier Ventures and Kima Ventures. Keyring aims to help institutional investors interact with DeFi platforms in a compliant manner while restricting counterparty addresses, using zero-knowledge (ZK) proof technology to protect privacy and sensitive data.
Innovative hybrid centralized cryptocurrency exchange (CEX) GRVT announced a $2.2 million strategic investment, bringing total funding to $9.3 million. Participants include QCP Capital, Selini Capital, Antelope, Pulsar Trading, and Ampersan. The platform plans to launch a central limit order book for perpetual and options trading, along with RFQ and spot trading later this year. It also offers efficient margin models including portfolio and cross-margin.
Digital asset derivatives trading platform Kemet Trading announced $5 million in funding, led by Further Ventures, with participation from Deribit, QCP, Falcon X, Flow Traders, and Hyperithm. Kemet Trading currently supports trading of digital asset options, futures, and perpetuals, aiming to serve as a single institutional access point for the digital asset derivatives ecosystem. Funds will be used to increase liquidity and enhance security and compliance features.
Self-custodial cryptocurrency exchange Rails announced a $6.2 million seed round, led by Slow Ventures, with participation from CMCC Global, Round13 Capital, and Quantstamp. Satraj Bambra, co-founder and CEO of Rails, said Rails combines centralized order books for optimal execution with on-chain self-custody solutions for transparent fund custody, protecting user assets and restoring trust—avoiding another FTX-like incident.
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