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 showing to bitcoin as an asset class. The most important events of recent weeks are in the bitcoinlinux review.
Chain Reaction raises $70M in Morgan Creek-led round
Blockchain and privacy hardware-focused chipmaker Chain Reaction has raised $70 million in a Series C funding round led by Morgan Creek Digital.
Participants include Hanaco Ventures, Jerusalem Venture Partners, KCK Capital, Exor, Atreides Management and BlueRun Ventures. The round brought the company’s total capital raised to $115 million.
The startup is using the funds to expand its team of engineers and developers. Now the staff of the division is 100 employees, including ex-specialists from Nvidia, Mellanox, Israel Intelligence and TSMC.
The funding will allow Chain Reaction to accelerate the deployment of enterprise-level blockchain products – special-purpose integrated circuits and equipment based on them.
The team also plans to scale technical privacy solutions related to cloud computing.
Chain Reaction expects the first chips and hardware systems to become generally available in the first quarter of 2023.
Indian web3 startup Kratos raises $20M at $150M valuation
India-based gaming startup Kratos Studios has raised $20 million in seed funding. The round was led by Accel with participation from Prosus Ventures, Courtside Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners and Nazara Technologies.
Investors valued the startup at $150 million.
“We make on-chain gamer profiles in the context of groups and enable game developers to create quests. Developers pay us to post their quests, and players pay us to review them,” said Ishank Gupta, co-founder of the project.
Kratos was founded in September 2022 and helps members convert on-chain assets into fiat money.
Web3 game Worldwide Webb raises $10 million from Pantera Capital
Investment firm Pantera Capital has invested $10 million in massively multiplayer online role-playing game Worldwide Webb in its Series A funding round.
Players can participate in quests and interact with the browser-based MMORPG’s virtual economy by purchasing “land” and “real estate”.
In the coming weeks, the project will release a new game – Blockbusterz, where NFT holders from popular collections like CryptoPunks, BAYC and Doodles will be able to fight each other.
The project will use the funds raised to expand the team and add support for new networks in addition to Ethereum.
Crypto wallet ZenGo raises $10M at $100M valuation
Israeli non-custodial cryptocurrency wallet startup ZenGo has raised $10 million in convertible bonds in an extended Series A funding round.
The company was valued at $100 million. The startup aims to attract larger investments in the next Series B round, which will take place at the end of 2023.
“We are constantly in touch with investors who are interested in our company, but cannot comment on any transactional rumors,” said Uriel Ohayon, CEO of ZenGo.
ZenGo supports 50 cryptocurrencies and is constantly expanding the list. The audience of the crypto wallet is more than 800,000 registered users. The startup intends to increase the figure to 2 million by the end of 2023.
Polyhedra Network raises $10M from Binance Labs and other investors
Web3 infrastructure startup Polyhedra Network has raised $10 million in a funding round led by Binance Labs and Polychain Capital, with participation from Animoca Brands and Dao5.
Polyhedra Network developers have created several products based on zero-knowledge proofs, including:
- zkBridge is a solution for moving assets from Web 2.0 to Web3 systems;
- zkDID – a system for decentralized identification;
- ParaPlonk is a scaling solution using ZK-Rollups.
The startup plans to expand integration with various blockchains, make products more accessible to developers, and improve the ParaPlonk protocol. Polyhedra Network also uses the raised funds for staff recruitment.
Conflux developers raised $10 million from DWF Labs investment company
The Conflux blockchain startup team has raised $10 million from the investment company DWF Labs through the sale of CFX tokens from the reserve fund.
The funds raised will be used to create a technology stack and expand the user base.
According to Conflux co-founder Fan Long, CFX tokens will be unlocked linearly over a period. He called the strategic investment “extremely important” to building the ecosystem.
Impossible Cloud Raises $7M Seed Investment
Decentralized cloud platform Impossible Cloud closes $7M seed funding round.
It was led by HV Capital and 1kx with participation from Protocol Labs, TS Ventures and Very Early Ventures. Together with the new capital, the startup’s total funding approached $11 million.
Impossible Cloud is co-founded by Goodgame Studios founder Kai Wawrzinek, former Airbnb CEO Christian Kaul, and former D2iQ open source developer Daniel Baker.
The startup intends to solve the problems of centralized cloud platforms such as Amazon, Microsoft and Meta, which suffer from complex pricing models, volume limits and a single point of failure.
Liquid Staking Protocol Ether.Fi Raises $5.3M Investment
The Ether.Fi project has raised $5.3M in a funding round led by North Island Ventures and Chapter One. A total of 35 investors participated. Among them: Node Capital, Arrington Capital, Maelstrom and Version One Ventures.
Ether.Fi positions itself as a decentralized solution where keys are controlled by users. By depositing funds, market participants receive NFTs with metadata. The latter, according to the idea of the project representatives, will be used to further create a staking infrastructure.
ZK Dark Pool Renegade Raises $3.4M Seed Investment
Decentralized exchange startup Renegade has raised $3.4 million in a seed round led by Dragonfly Capital and ex-CEO AngelList Naval Ravikant.
Other contributors include Balaji Srinivasan, Tarun Chitra of Robot Ventures, Mark Bhargava of Tagomi, and Lev Livnev of Symbolic Capital Partners.
Renegade is an on-chain version of the dark pool, a private, over-the-counter trading platform for financial instruments targeted at high-profile players.
Among the main features of the new product: the use of a confidential computing protocol, as well as zero-knowledge proofs.
The main purpose of Renegade is to help traders make trades at the best prices without signaling their intentions to the wider market.
The launch of the public testnet of the project is scheduled for the second quarter of 2023.
Redeem NFT via SMS platform raises $2.5M
Redeem, a startup developing technology to buy and send NFTs using a phone number, has raised $2.5 million in a seed funding round.
It was led by venture capital firm Kenetic Capital with participation from Monochrome Capital, VC3 DAO, The Fund, Flyover Capital, CMT Digital, KCRise Fund and the KESTREL0x1 fund of former Palantir employees.
The startup will use the funds raised to launch the product in the second quarter of 2023 and further improve it.
The Redeem platform allows you to associate a crypto wallet on any network with a phone number. This makes it possible to purchase by scanning a QR code utility-NFTs that represent tickets, loyalty points, in-game items, and more. Users can then send and receive assets using Apple iMessage, WhatsApp, or SMS.
According to the founder of the startup, Toby Rush, the absence of the need to use a cryptocurrency interface and pay on-chain fees will greatly simplify the interaction of users with the Web3 infrastructure. The decision is capable of accelerating the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies, he believes.
Also on bitcoinlinux:
- Investors have valued the Blocto multi-chain wallet at $80 million.
- BitDAO members will vote to create a $200 million investment fund.
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