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.
Morgan Creek to Launch New $500 Million Web3 Fund
Morgan Creek Digital plans to raise up to $500 million for a new Web3 fund aimed at artificial intelligence, blockchain technologies, chips and data processing, CoinDesk reports, citing a press release.
The firm also intends to expand its regional presence in Europe, Africa, the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East. To do this, the venture player conducts a dialogue with local officials and industry experts.
"With Web3's global reach, the company will spend more time in international markets seeking to connect with the best CEOs and partners," Morgan Creek Digital said.
The new fund will invest in projects that "seek to combine the power of AI, blockchain and related chips to extract value from data." The main direction is startups combining several business lines.
As an example, the company cited the developer of high-performance processors that can be used to train AI in data centers or for mining bitcoin.
Morgan Creek Digital forecasts that investments in generative AI in Asia-Pacific countries will triple in 2024 and reach $3.4 billion. In parallel, the Middle East is "experiencing a period of revival of new advanced technologies," according to representatives of the company.
Since its founding in 2018, Morgan Creek Digital has raised more than $440 million and has about 80 equity positions.
Iris Energy has raised $413 million for mining development
The Australian company mining the first cryptocurrency, Iris Energy, raised about $413.4 million through a share offering to expand the business after halving.
According to the press release, in the period from May 15 to June 28, the company sold 39.8 million of its own securities. The miner intends to achieve a hashrate of 30 EH/s and increase the capacity of data centers to 510 MW.
The "additional cash buffer" is used for equipment purchases for 2025 and other corporate purposes.
According to the report for the first quarter, Iris Energy received revenue of $53.4 million from bitcoin mining. Over the past period, the figure amounted to $42 million. The company's net profit after income tax increased to $8.6 million from $5.2 million a quarter earlier.
According to MarketWatch, on July 12, trading in the company's shares closed at $12.31, an increase of almost 10% during the trading session. Since the beginning of the year, the miner's securities have increased by 85%.
Iris Energy stock quotes. Data: MarketWatch.Peter Thiel invested in an AI startup based on Polygon
Sentient— an AI platform based on the Polygon blockchain, raised $85 million with the participation of PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Pantera Capital, Framework Ventures and other investors. The company creates open source artificial intelligence models with community participation.
One of the founders of the startup is Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal. According to him, he focused on a new project to expand the L2 network in the field of AI.
Among other project managers:
Pramod Viswanath, Professor of Engineering at Princeton University;Professor of Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science Himanshu Tyagi;Sensys venture studio, which creates advanced products and applications for Sentient."AI has become incredibly centralized today, and its safety and ethics are questionable. Therefore, AI models created by the community are the key," Nailwal said.
Sentient will be based on Polygon by creating its own chain using the Polygon Chain Development Kit. The project is expected to launch a test network in the third quarter.
https://forklog.com/cryptorium/chto-takoe-polygon-maticInvestors have allocated $16 million for the Lombard Bitcoin restaking project
Lombard's first cryptocurrency restaking protocol raised $16 million in seed funding under the leadership of Polychain Capital.
Lombard is excited to announce our $16M seed round to kick-start the Bitcoin restaking ecosystem led by @polychain!
With additional participation from @babylon_chain, @daofive, @FTI_Global, @ForesightVen, @mirana, @0xMantleEco Fund, @NomadCapital_io, @OKX_Ventures, and… pic.twitter.com/QOlsrlQcz5
BabylonChain, Inc., dao5, Franklin Templeton, Foresight Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Mantle EcoFund, Nomad Capital and others participated in the fundraising.
Lombard uses the funding to develop the bitcoin re-staking ecosystem together with Babylon. The solution will issue LBTC liquidity tokens after blocking assets in the partner protocol.
"Lombard aims to transform bitcoin from a means of saving into a productive asset that will integrate into the Web3 economy and contribute to sustainable growth with the help of LBTC's flagship product," the company said.
The startup intends to integrate LBTC into Ethereum's DeFi protocols later this year.
Oracle of RedStone closed the investment round for $15 million
Modular blockchain oracle provider RedStone has raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Arrington Capital.
RedStone is excited to announce a $15M Series A fundraising round, led by @Arrington_Cap to expand its Modular Oracle product ♦️🧵 pic.twitter.com/d8wNIJ0uPr
— RedStone Oracles ♦️ (@redstone_defi) July 2, 2024Other investors include Kraken Ventures, White Star Capital, Spartan Group, Amber Group, SevenX Ventures and IOSG Ventures, as well as several business angels.
RedStone began raising funds for the investment fund in April and closed it in June, said Jakub Wojciechowski, founder and CEO of the project.
The financing was structured as a simple agreement on future tokens. Wojciechowski added that RedStone "does not have an equity component at all" and declined to comment on the valuation.
"Thanks to the modular architecture, the launch of our oracles in new networks is much faster [...]. In the wake of the popularity of liquid restaking, we were the first oracle to support projects like Ether.Fi, Renzo, Puffer and Swell," added the CEO of the startup.
He also noted that RedStone is the first and so far the only oracle in The Open Network ecosystem. In total, the startup, founded in 2020, supports over 60 networks.
"Tapalka" by Pixelverse
After launching the PixelTap clicker game on Telegram, Pixelverse raised an additional $2 million.
One month ago, Pixelverse announced our initial fundraising of $5.5 million.
Following Pixelverse's unparalleled growth, we are excited to welcome our new investors: @galaxyhq @CRIT_ventures @arcthecommunity @krugermacro @lukebelmar @mdudas
This extension round will… pic.twitter.com/Y2k8zGTgHd
After the $5.5 million round closed in June, several other investors joined the project, including Galaxy Interactive, Crit Ventures, Arc Community, as well as private sponsors Alex Kruger, Luke Belmar and Mike Dudas.
"This expanded round will support Pixelverse's idea of bringing mass adoption to life and help develop our future MMORPG game," the announcement says.
According to Pixelverse, the startup's "quest cyberpunk browser" and Telegram games have more than 70 million registered users and 13 million active users per day.
Also on ForkLog:
In the second quarter, investments in crypto startups increased to $3.2 billion.