Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Author | Dingdang ( @XiaMiPP )
According to incomplete statistics from Odaily Planet Daily, there were 11 blockchain-related financing events announced worldwide from May 12 to May 18, an increase from 8 in the previous week, showing the continued activeness of the blockchain field. However, the total amount of financing announced this week was approximately US$89 million, a decrease from US$113 million in the previous week, and the scale of short-term financing fluctuated and shrank.
Among the financing highlights of this week, AI video generation platform Hedra performed well and successfully raised $32 million, becoming the project with the highest financing amount of the week. It was followed by blockchain infrastructure platform Openverse Network, which received $11 million in financing.
The following are specific financing events (Note: 1. Sort by the amount of money announced; 2. Excludes fund raising and MA events; 3. * indicates a traditional company whose business involves blockchain):
AI video generation platform Hedra completes $32 million Series A financing, led by a16z Infra
On May 15, AI video generation platform Hedra announced the completion of a $32 million Series A financing, led by a16z Infra, with participation from a16z Speedrun, Index Ventures and Abstract. The latest round of financing will be mainly used to support team expansion and product development. Hedra plans to triple its headcount from the current 20 by the end of this year. The company also plans to enhance its Character-3 base model, invest in infrastructure to expand the scale of video rendering, and build an enterprise-centric workflow for faster, higher-quality video production.
On May 12, Layer 0 blockchain infrastructure platform Openverse Network announced the completion of a US$11 million strategic round of financing, with participation from Castrum Capital, TB Ventures, DuckDAO, Asva Capital and others. The new funds are intended to be used to accelerate the development of its global ecosystem, including ecological construction, and encourage more developers and partners to join in to jointly build a more open and interconnected value network.
Perpl Completes $9.25 Million Financing, Dragonfly Leads Investment
On May 13, the Perps DEX project Perpl announced the completion of a $9.25 million financing, led by Dragonfly, with participation from Ergonia, Brevan Howard, Breed, L1 D and CMS. Perpl plans to build a central limit order book (CLOB) on its chain using Monads high-performance EVM architecture. The team, based in London, aims to launch a testnet and plans to launch the mainnet after the Monad mainnet goes live.
KYD Labs Completes $7 Million Seed Round, Led by a16z Crypto
On May 14, blockchain ticketing platform KYD Labs announced the completion of a $7 million seed round of financing, led by a16z Crypto. KYD Labs aims to allow artists and venues to control ticket sales, fan data and revenue, and solve the problem of lost revenue. The platform is built on Solana, allowing fans to quickly purchase tickets, and plans to expand to more than 100 venues in the United States by 2026.
On-chain liquidity distribution protocol Turtle Club completes $6.2 million seed round of financing
On May 12, the on-chain liquidity distribution protocol Turtle Club announced today that it has completed a $6.2 million seed round of financing, led by THEIA, with participation from Susquehanna, Consensys and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin.
Solana Ecosystem Ticketing Platform XP Completes $6.2 Million in Financing, Led by Blockchange
On May 16, Solana ecosystem ticketing platform XP completed a US$6.2 million seed round of financing. This round of financing was led by Blockchange, with participation from L1 D and Reflexive.
It is reported that XP is a ticketing platform based on Solana, whose main business is to sell discounted tickets, but it hints that it will have greater ambitions in fan experience in the future.
On May 13, blockchain cloud computing company Nirvana Labs completed a $6 million seed extension round of financing, led by Jump Crypto and Crucible Capital, with participation from RW 3 Ventures, Castle Island and Hash 3 VC, bringing its total financing amount to $11.8 million.
The company provides computing services tailored for the encryption field. Unlike traditional cloud service providers that centralize computing resources, Nirvana uses bare metal infrastructure, and each server only serves one client. Nirvana has served infrastructure providers such as BitGo and Fireblocks, and protocol foundations such as Avalanche and Berachain. Nirvana also plans to serve as a front-end service to help organizations deploy on Internet filtering startup DoubleZero.
On May 16, Giza, an artificial intelligence (AI) platform based on smart contracts and web3 protocols, announced that it had completed a total of US$5.2 million in financing. As the infrastructure of Xenocognitive Finance, its investors include Base Ecosystem Fund, Echo, CoinFund, Re 7 Capital, Stake Capital, ID Theory, CONTANGO, etc.
According to reports, Giza is developing a trustless protocol that aims to decentralize machine learning inference computing and provide security for the open economy of open source AI. It enables AI developers to generate zero-knowledge proofs to ensure the transparency and credibility of verifiable machine learning model deployment.
On May 16, XSY.fi, a decentralized financial capital management platform, announced that its core product Unity (UTY) has officially launched a beta version on the Avalanche blockchain and completed a $5 million Pre-A round of financing. This round of financing was jointly led by Protagonist Ventures and Borderless Capital, with participation from Paper Ventures, Chainview Capital, Blizzard the Avalanche Fund, Sonic Boom Ventures, and others.
Unity is a new type of digital synthetic dollar asset that aims to improve on-chain liquidity and capital efficiency. By combining spot longs and perpetual contract shorts to build a Delta neutral strategy, users can obtain sustainable returns while maintaining exposure to the original assets. During the testing phase, Unity has received over $20 million in asset commitments and will simultaneously launch a limited-time points incentive program to encourage early participation.
Blockchain investment firm Coinsilium raises £1.25 million, launches Bitcoin finance strategy
On May 16, blockchain investment company Coinsilium Group announced the completion of £1.25 million of institutional financing and the simultaneous launch of a £250,000 retail fundraising plan to advance its Bitcoin reserve strategy. The private placement was priced at 3 pence per share, and the oversubscribed funds will be injected into its wholly-owned subsidiary Forza (Gibraltar) Limited as the operating entity. Malcolm Palle, the companys executive chairman, said that the financing will accelerate the implementation of the Bitcoin reserve plan. At the same time, Oak Securities was appointed as a joint broker to strengthen the capital market operation capabilities. The newly issued shares are expected to be listed on the Aquis Growth Market on May 22, and the total share capital will reach 274.7 million shares after completion. Board member James Van Straten emphasized that the company is fully focused on the Bitcoin reserve strategy, and the fundraising includes an arrangement to use 6.56 million ordinary shares to offset £196,800 in service fees.
SpaceComputer Completes Pre-seed Round of Financing, Primitive Leads Investment
On May 13, the SpaceComputer project announced the completion of pre-seed financing, led by Primitive, with participation from nascentxyz, tangent_xyz, symbolicvc, publicworksfm, Merkle Ventures and Star-Shield, as well as several angel investors, such as loi_luu, Polygon co-founder and Melt_Dem. The specific amount of this financing has not yet been disclosed.
