In January 2024, 104 projects from the Web3 and blockchain sphere attracted funding totaling $619.6 million. The editors analyzed this month's investments in detail.
Cryptocurrency exchange operator HashKey Group attracted the most funds in January - $100 million. The company did not disclose the details of the Series A financing round and did not publish a list of investors. Representatives of HashKey Group noted that the company was valued at $1.2 billion. The new funds will be used to expand the holding’s cryptocurrency ecosystem, diversify business products in Hong Kong and innovative development of companies under its control.
Next in terms of the amount of funding received are:
$50 million - Flowdesk. The French market maker reported the completion of a Series B funding round, as a result of which its valuation increased to $250 million. New capital was provided to the startup by Cathay Ledger Fund, Eurazeo, ISAI, Speedinvest, Ripple Labs and Bpifrance. The company intends to use the funds received to hire staff, expand OTC services and obtain licenses in Singapore and the USA.
$50 million - Canaan. A manufacturer of Bitcoin mining devices has attracted investments. It is known that the company received new capital through the issue and sale of 50,000 Series A convertible preferred shares. The company uses the financing to expand its production capacity, research and development, and other general corporate purposes.
$40 million - Sygnum. The Swiss cryptocurrency bank received funds during the next round of financing. The key investor was the Azimut Holdings group. The new capital will be used to expand activities in Asia and Europe.
$34 million - Portal. The startup closed its seed round of funding. Investors included Coinbase Ventures, Arrington Capital, OKX Ventures and Gate.io. The project aims to create a Bitcoin-based infrastructure that will allow any user to exchange the first cryptocurrency between a number of blockchains in “a matter of seconds.” They plan to use the new capital to launch products, develop an ecosystem and create an AI-based application that “will help make investment decisions.”
Undisclosed details
A number of projects reported in January that they had raised funding, but did not disclose the amount of investment.
Among them: WISe.ART, DeMR, Nubit, Memecoin, Gelato, Polyhedra Network, Oort, Orbiter Finance, BeWater, Rome Protocol, Beoble, InTax, CCData, Cadence Protocol, EDX Markets, BDACS, BitGo, Meson Network, B² Network, TProtocol, GG, Puffer Finance, Doubler, Zeepr.
Investing in artificial intelligence
In January, it became known that more than $178 million had been raised by projects that would use funds to develop solutions based on artificial intelligence, according to Finsmes.
$73.6 million - Perplexity. The AI assistant startup has raised funds in a Series B funding round led by IVP with participation from NEA, NVIDIA, Databricks and Bessemer Venture Partners, as well as private investors Jeff Bezos, Nat Friedman and Toby Luedke. The company intends to use the funds received to expand its business.
$30.5 million – Sema4.ai. The startup, which brings open-source artificial intelligence to businesses, has received funding from Benchmark and the Mayfield Fund. Sema4.ai creates so-called intelligent agents that “change the way workers collaborate with artificial intelligence.”
$26 million – Robin AI. The British company raised investment in Series B funding led by Temasek. Investors included QuantumLight, Plural and AFG Partners. The startup intends to use the funds to expand its team in the US, open an office in Singapore to enter the Asia-Pacific markets, and also expand its team of artificial intelligence specialists.
Robin AI uses generative artificial intelligence to help legal teams automate and speed up the contract drafting and negotiation process.
$11.1 million - Norm Ai. The New York-based company, which works to improve regulatory compliance for AI agents, received funding in a seed round led by Coatue with participation from Haystack Ventures, M13 Ventures, Basis Set Ventures, Expa Ventures and Atypical Ventures. The company intends to use the funds received to expand its activities and market coverage.
$11 million – Ask-AI. A firm that provides AI-powered answer and insight solutions to enterprises has raised investment. The Series A funding round was led by Leaders Fund with participation from Vertex Ventures, State of Mind Ventures, GTMFund and others.
$7 million - Sky Engine AI. The platform, which provides AI for use in automotive, robotics, medical diagnostics and other sectors, has received investment. The funding round was led by Cogito Capital Partners with participation from Charles W. Morgan, Edge VC, Taiwania Capital, Movens Capital and High-Tech Gründerfonds.
Dynamics:
The projects attracted the largest amount of investment in the amount of $221.4 million in the period from January 13 to January 20.
In the period from January 1 to January 13, the projects attracted investments totaling $108.7 million. The leaders in terms of the amount of funding received were the Tune.FM and Finoa projects. The funds' attention was focused on the DeFi and blockchain services development sectors.
From January 20 to January 27, projects received $214.6 million in funding. Then the Canaan and Sygnum projects became the leaders in terms of the amount of funding received, and the funds’ attention was focused on the sector of development of blockchain services.
In addition, at the end of the month, from January 27 to January 31, 21 projects received $74.9 million in funding, as follows:
During this period, the Portal project attracted $34 million in investments; we mentioned it above.
$7 million - Forgotten Playland. Social gaming platform Web3 has raised funding. Merit Circle, Spartan Group, C2 Ventures and Paper Ventures participated in the investment round. The platform plans to release its first product in the first quarter of 2024.
$6.5 million - Mesh. PayPal has invested in cryptocurrency startup Mesh, which provides payment services in the cryptocurrency sector. It should be noted that the project received $5 million in investments in PYUSD stablecoins, and another $1.5 million in cash. Mesh is considered a cryptocurrency version of the Plaid service, which allows you to connect your bank account to applications and websites.
$6 million - Gevulot. The startup closed a seed round led by venture capital firm Variant. The project team plans to launch an L1 network based on zero-knowledge evidence. The following counterparties also took part in the financing round: RockawayX, Volt Capital, Staining Accommodations. In addition, funds were provided by business angels, namely: Polygon Labs CEO Mark Buaroni and Manta Network founder Shumo Chu.
$4 million - Squid. A Swiss supplier of a "secure internetwork router" has raised funding. The round was led by Polychain Capital with participation from Nomad Capital, North Island Ventures, Maelstrom, Chorus One, The Department of XYZ, Breed, Binary Builders and Typhon Ventures, Distributed Global, Fabric Ventures, Node. The company intends to use the funds to speed up the development of its products, as well as integrate with decentralized applications.
$2.7 million – BBOX. The decentralized derivatives exchange has received investment in a pre-seed funding round led by Hashed and Arrington Capital. Other investors included Consensys, CMS Holdings, Flow Traders, Manifold Trading, Mask Network and Nomura's Laser Digital. The project team is working on launching an automated market maker.
$2.5 million - Infrared. The decentralized protocol has closed an investment round led by Synergis. The funds received will be used to develop a network of validators and launch their own token. The following counterparties also took part in the round: GC Ventures, Tribe Capital, CitizenX, Shima Capital, Dao5, Signum Capital Ouroboros Capital, Decima, Oak Grove Ventures, DoraHacks, Tenzor Capital and private investors representing Injective, Curve, Espresso and many other crypto projects .
$2.5 million – Ithaca Protocol. The startup announced the closing of its previous seed round of funding. The team aims to create “the most liquid and capital efficient options protocol possible.”
$2.5 million – Reboot World. The company creating the artificial intelligence metaverse has received funding. On the platform, users can “match physical assets with digital ones in the form of NFTs,” release them to the market, and integrate them into games.
$2 million – NAVI Protocol. The decentralized liquidity protocol has attracted investment. The funding round was led by venture capital funds OKX Ventures, Hashed Fund and the dao5 organization. In addition, Mechanism Capital, Gate.io, Arche Fund, Mysten Labs, ViaBTC Capital and a number of other funds became investors in the project.
$1.5 million - Hivello. The blockchain-based payment solutions provider has received funding from Blockchange, Cypher Capital, MH Ventures, Primal Capital, Contango Digital Assets, Candaq and others. The company intends to expand its technological capabilities, accelerate product development and strengthen its market position in the DePIN services sector.
$1.5 million - Yooldo. The Web3 gaming platform has completed a funding round, as a result of which its valuation increased to $3 million. Investors included: Bedrock Ventures, Double jump.tokyo, Edimus, Hyperithm, Klaytn Foundation, Manta Network, Neopin, Planetarium, Presto Labs, Vista Labs. The team also noted that the sponsors included the Aptos Foundation, BNB Chain, Immutable X, Oasys.
$1.2 million - Bmaker. The team of the Bmaker project, aimed at creating an L2 protocol for Bitcoin smart contracts, has attracted funding from C3u Capital, Tangle Capital and Waterdrop Capital. The developers launched the platform and also presented a collection of NFTs on the Element marketplace. The funds received will be used to further develop the Bmaker infrastructure.
$1 million – Yet Another Company. The Ethereum infrastructure startup announced the completion of a funding round led by LambdaClass with the participation of Gagra Ventures, C² Ventures and angel investors. The company aims to solve the problems of liquidity fragmentation and market interoperability in the Ethereum ecosystem.
The amount of investment was not disclosed:
TProtocol announced the successful completion of a funding round with participation from Summer Capital, Matrixport Venture and Spark Digital Capital. TProtocol aims to provide RWA issuers with the ability to transact on the blockchain and list assets on the TProtocol platform.
The Doubler protocol has attracted investments from DWF Labs, Mask Network, Corporation, Continue Capital and 8 other investors.
Gaming platform GG has raised funds from cryptocurrency venture capital fund Delphi Digital to create an online game that combines cryptocurrencies, games and augmented reality. Also investors were: gmoney, Cozomo de Medici, Coop Records and others.
Binance Labs, the venture arm of the exchange of the same name, has invested an undisclosed amount in the Puffer Finance project. This is an Ethereum liquid staking protocol based on EigenLayer. The startup's valuation has not been disclosed. Puffer Finance developers will use the funds received to develop internal infrastructure and available products, the release says.
Decentralized perpetual futures protocol Zeepr has received funding from Cincubator.
Oddiyana Ventures has made a strategic investment in the Nibiru L1 blockchain.
The BitSmiley protocol received investment in a funding round co-led by OKX Ventures and ABCDE with participation from 11 other investors. New capital is used to expand the team, develop the ecosystem and build strategic partnerships.
Investors and segments
According to CryptoRank, the most active investor in January was OKX Ventures. The fund has invested in 10 startups, 6 of them from the DeFi sector.
Investors' focus in January was on the DeFi sectors and the development of blockchain services.
