The cryptocurrency industry is attracting an increasing number of institutional players. This is evidenced by new investments in infrastructure, and the increasing attention that companies are paying to bitcoin as an asset class. The most important events of recent weeks are in the ForkLog review.
Modular blockchain Available raised $43 million
The modular blockchain team of Avail has closed a Series A funding round in the amount of $43 million. The total investment in the project has reached $75 million.
The round was led by Founders Fund, Dragonfly Capital and Cyber Fund with the participation of SevenX Ventures, Figment Capital, Nomad Capital, Chapter One, Foresight Ventures, Mirana Ventures, KR1, Alliance and Hashkey Capital.
According to The Block, 50 people currently work at Avail. The funds raised will be used, among other things, to expand the staff.
The M^0 DeFi protocol raised $35 million
The decentralized protocol for mining stablecoins M^0 has closed a Series A funding round in the amount of $35 million.
🎉The M^0 project secured $35M in Series A funding to advance its cryptodollar issuance network. Led by @BainCapCrypto with support from top-tier investors, this milestone coincides with the deployment of the M^0 core protocol & governance mechanism on #Ethereum pic.twitter.com/R9dJshX6tD
— M^0 Labs (@m0labs) June 5, 2024It was led by Bain Capital Crypto with the participation of Galaxy Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, GSR, Caladan, SCB 10X and other investors.
Luca Prosperi, president of the M^0 Foundation, told The Block that the Ethereum-based protocol mainnet is planned to be launched in the coming weeks.
ZK startup Nexus Labs raised $25 million
Zero-disclosure evidence-based startup Nexus Labs has closed a $25 million Series A funding round.
1/ We're excited to announce a $25M Series A round co-led by @lightspeedvp and @PanteraCapital, with participation from @dragonfly_xyz, and more, to bring zero-knowledge proofs to the fabric of the Internet.
We're scaling the Nexus 1.0 zkVM to 1 trillion Hz of compute capacity. pic.twitter.com/Imwrlqlik7
It was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pantera Capital with the participation of Dragonfly, Faction and the Blockchain Builders Fund.
The goal of the startup is to make the Internet more private, secure and reliable.
The funds raised will be used to develop the Nexus ecosystem, develop the open source Nexus 1.0 protocol and expand the scientific and technical team.
The Sandbox Metaverse has raised $20 million
The team behind The Sandbox metaverse has closed a $20 million funding round with the support of Web3 game operator Animoca Brands.
Our subsidiary @TheSandboxGame, a leading user-generated content (UGC) #metaverse platform, has announced that it has raised US$20 million of convertible promissory notes with a US$1 billion valuation cap. https://t.co/G0tljR5zb8
— Animoca Brands (@animocabrands) June 7, 2024Investments were also provided by Kingsway Capital, LG Tech Ventures and True Global Ventures.
The funds raised will be used to update the Game Maker and VoxEdit 3D editor tools, introduce new social interactions and abilities for avatars, expand gameplay capabilities and develop a mobile version. The latter is planned to be launched in 2025.
BITAI Crypto exchange raised $20 million
The BITAI cryptocurrency exchange has closed a seed round of financing in the amount of $ 20 million.
🔥🔥BITAI Raises $20 Million in Seed Funding Led by First Round‼️BITAI, a Web3-based AI intelligent crypto exchange, has completed a $20 million seed funding round led by First Round. Jump Crypto and Dragonfly also participated.
✅The funds raised will be used to advance the… pic.twitter.com/SH7jCH875G
It was led by the First Round with the participation of Jump Crypto and Dragonfly Capital.
The funds raised will be used to develop a trading platform that uses artificial intelligence in its work.
Tether has invested $18.75 million in the XREX crypto exchange
The issuer of the USDT stablecoin, Tether— invested $18.75 million in the XREX cryptocurrency exchange. This is reported by The Block.
The funds raised will be used to simplify cross-border payments between enterprises in emerging markets using USDT.
"Our collaboration with XREX initiates several innovative initiatives, including the launch of a unique new unified stablecoin from the Unitas Foundation and the promotion of cross—border payments based on USDT," said Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino.XREX Group CEO Wayne Huang noted that cooperation between the two companies will help law enforcement agencies "identify, arrest and try criminals."
Also on ForkLog:
Paris-based AI startup Mistral AI has raised €600 million.Tether will commit more than $1 billion to investments in the next 12 months.Binance has created an alliance to support Web3 startups.