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2023 is a mixed start for crypto venture capital as the industry continues to come out of a protracted bear market. But that's not to say there isn't an agreement. In January, Cointelegraph reported a $125 million raise from Blockstream, a $60 million allocation to QuickNode and pair of ecosystem funds from Injective and worth $150 million and $50 million, respectively.
The latest issue of vc roundup brings you seven small businesses who may have slipped through the cracks.
Related: Venture capital investments into blockchain continue to free-fall: Report
=nil; Foundation closes $22M fundraise
In January, Polygon Capital led a $22 million funding round for =nil; Foundation, an Ethereum development company focused on zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs. Fundraising estimated at = 0; foundation at $220 million and will be used to help the company broaden its evidence market. The company's evidence market is a data accessibility protocol that allows layer 1 and layer 2 blockchains to generate zk evidence on demand without relying on centralized middlemen. Evidence market was developed to provide a secure data transfer between ethereum and public protocols, according to =nil; founding co-founder konstantin lomashuk.
Related: Top crypto funding stories of 2022
Ethereum infrastructure provider Blocknative raises $15M
Web3 infrastructure company Blocknative has raised $15 million to support its continued growth in the Ethereum and public blockchain marketplace. The company, which provides real-time transaction monitoring that enables validators to optimize staking rewards, is positioning itself as a block builder for post-Merge Ethereum. The financing cycle involved several venture companies, including blockchain capital, smelter group, fenbushi capital, hack vc and iosg companies. Blocknative has collected 34 million dollars in cumulative funding to date.
#Web3 took center stage in 2022, with 616 individual deals, by far the most.#CeFi, the least popular sector, only closed 201 deals.
Despite this, cefi has received the same vc funding amount as web3, with approximately three times the investment per agreement! https://t.co/fYTCURUvaX pic.twitter.com/WfNsrsVz1A
— Cointelegraph Research (@CointelegraphCS) January 27, 2023
Web3 startup Nillion raises $20 million
Web3 infrastructure platform Nillion closed a strategic funding round valued at $20 million as part of its ongoing efforts to promote decentralization without blockchain technology. More than 150 investors participated, including large funds of brains, chapter one, gsr, hashkey and salt fund. The founder team of nillion consists of former uber executives, hedera hashgraph and indiegogo. The company also recruited former boxing and nike executives. While Nillion supports decentralization without blockchains, its technology offers a chain-to-chain portfolio compatible with existing blockchains.
Hack VC leads Archimedes’ $4.9M seed round
Decentralized finance (DeFi) lending marketplace Archimedes launched in February with a $4.9 million seed round backed by venture firms Hack VC, Uncorrelated Venture, Psalion, Truffle Ventures and others. The Archimedes market uses non fungible tokens to facilitate borrowing and lending, when leveraged policyholders receive a nft representing a stablecoin generating yield. The platform offers leverage of up to 10 times the amount of the guarantee on the principal.
The challenging sector underwent a thorough review during the 2022 centralized financial contagion. As reported by Cointelegraph, DeFi filled an important credit gap for the market in the wake of CeFi’s apparent failures.
Related: DeFi’s Next Big Thing: Liquid Staking Derivatives
Ethos Wallet receives venture backing
Sui Blockchain’s Ethos Wallet closed a $4.2 million seed round in January led by Boldstart Ventures and gumi Cryptos Capital. Ethos is a digital wallet that makes it possible for users to store their cryptography and nfts using a chrome extension. The portfolio also makes it possible to access decentralized applications on the sui blockchain, which was founded by mysten labs. In 2022, Mysten Labs raised $300 million in support of Sui, with backers that included COINBASE Ventures, Jump Crypto, Andreessen Horowitz and the now-defunct FTX Ventures.
The #crypto Venture Capital database available on the #ResearchTerminal has not only the amounts and dates of each individual deal but also detailed data about investment funds such as their #AUM, founders, and portfolios: https://t.co/78pvKoz2rg
Updated weekly! @Cointelegraph pic.twitter.com/t4mPqNurox
— Cointelegraph Research (@CointelegraphCS) June 6, 2022
VitaDAO raises $4.1M
The market for autonomous decentralised organizations, or DSOs, seems to be intensifying in new cases where the new entity structure is being used. In January, the longevity science research organization VitaDAO raised $4.1 million from contributors such as Pfizer Ventures, Shine Capital, L1 Digital and Web3-natives Beaker DAO and Spaceship DAO. Vitadao stated that the fund-raising would fund research into longevity and the creation of a new biotech company later in the quarter. The funding will also support commercialization and licensing of vitadao's intellectual assets, which represent intellectual property and patents for therapeutic research projects.
Hyper Oracle closes pre-seed funding backed by Sequoia China
Hyper Oracle, another ZK-focused company, has raised $3 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Sequoia China and Dao5. The company has developed block chain indexing and automation protocols for zk-resistant system integration, which, according to Hyper Oracle, will speed up and secure middleware operation. Hyper Oracle will use the funding to scale up its R&D activities and hire additional staff.
