Financing Weekly Report | 17 public financing events; the encryption dining application Blackbird Labs completes $50 million Series B financing, with participation from Coinbase and others.

Last week (4.7-4.13), there were a total of 17 investment and financing events in the global blockchain industry, with a total funding scale exceeding 150 million USD, which is a significant increase compared to the previous two weeks. The specifics are as follows:

There are 3 financing events in the DeFi sector, including the yield-bearing stablecoin protocol Cap raising $11 million from multiple institutions. In the Web3 gaming sector, there are 2 financing events, including DashFun completing a new round of financing. In the field combining Web3 and AI, there are 3 financing events, with AI cybersecurity company Octane completing a $6.75 million seed round. In the infrastructure and tools sector, there are 2 financing events, with the L2 project OpenZK Network securing $6 million in early financing. Other categories have 4 financing events, with the crypto food application Blackbird Labs obtaining $50 million in Series B financing. In the centralized finance sector, there are 3 financing events, with cryptocurrency insurance company Meanwhile completing a $40 million Series A financing.

DeFi

The yield-bearing stablecoin protocol Cap completes $11 million in financing.

Cap has announced the raising of $11 million from several well-known financial institutions. This funding was announced after the recent $8 million seed round financing and will be used to develop Cap's stablecoin engine, which is planned to launch later this year. Previously, Cap had raised $3 million. Cap will provide users with a way to earn additional income through a re-staking protocol. The system is designed to allow users to earn passive interest or returns based on these tokens.

The Bitcoin collateral loan market Firefish has completed a $1.8 million seed round financing.

The Bitcoin collateral loan open market Firefish has completed a $1.8 million seed round funding, with participation from Braiins and venture capital firm Miton. The funds will be used to expand Firefish's institutional loan program, covering more investors and high-net-worth individuals seeking to make traditional investments in the Bitcoin space. Firefish was launched in 2022, built natively on Bitcoin, utilizing technologies such as multi-signature escrow contracts, aiming to create a trust-minimized open lending market.

The Bitcoin DeFi aggregation protocol Sats Terminal has completed $1.7 million in Pre-Seed round financing.

Bitcoin DeFi aggregation protocol Sats Terminal has completed a $1.7 million Pre-Seed funding round, with participation from multiple institutions and angel investors. The new funds will be used to expand its platform. Sats Terminal will leverage this financing to further develop infrastructure by providing decentralized exchanges, cross-chain bridges, and yield aggregation within the Bitcoin ecosystem. The platform aggregates major Bitcoin DeFi protocols, allowing users to access the best staking yields, the most competitive token exchange rates, and seamless bridging options through a single interface.

Web3 games

DashFun has completed a new round of financing to create an AI-driven Web3 gaming ecosystem.

DashFun announces the completion of a new round of financing, with multiple institutions participating. DashFun is a Web3 gaming platform based on social platform mini-programs, with plans to expand to more social platforms in the future, committed to building a sustainable, AI-driven gaming ecosystem.

Web3 game company Gunzilla Games secures strategic investment.

The encryption venture capital firm announced a strategic investment in the developer of the dystopian cyberpunk shooter "Off The Grid," Gunzilla Games, with the specific amount undisclosed. This could mark a shift in the firm's investment attitude towards the deployment of cryptocurrency strategies in AAA games.

AI

AI cybersecurity company Octane completes $6.75 million seed round financing.

AI cybersecurity startup Octane has completed a $6.75 million seed round of financing, with participation from multiple institutions and angel investors. The funds will be used for product development, expanding the engineering team, and increasing influence. Octane's core proposition is to supplement passive auditing models with always-on AI defense, currently focusing on smart contract vulnerabilities, with future goals of detecting and preventing more complex attacks.

Plastic Labs completed a $5.35 million Pre-Seed funding round and launched the AI identity platform Honcho.

Plastic Labs has completed a $5.35 million Pre-Seed round of financing, with participation from multiple institutions and angel investors. At the same time, its personalized AI identity platform "Honcho" is open for early access. Honcho provides user identity modeling and social cognition features through cloud-based APIs, helping developers build AI agents with personalized memory and adaptability. Plastic plans to expand Honcho from a platform to a decentralized network, promoting an individual-led AI alignment paradigm.

Web3 AI project DecentralGPT completes $3 million financing.

The Web3 AI project DecentralGPT has completed angel round and Series A strategic financing equivalent to $3 million, with multiple institutions participating in the investment. The project team will accelerate the development of core modules such as multimodal large model support and zero-knowledge proof privacy layer research and development. DecentralGPT is a decentralized large language model infrastructure that achieves decentralized deployment of multiple open-source large models through a distributed AI inference network. Since its launch online, the platform has accumulated over 2 million registered users and the number of token holding addresses has reached 900,000.

Infrastructure & Tools

L2 project OpenZK Network completes $6 million in early financing.

OpenZK Network announced the completion of a $6 million early financing round, with multiple institutions participating. The funds will be used to support technology research and development as well as ecosystem construction. OpenZK was founded by former executives and is currently actively negotiating cooperation with several institutions to advance its subsequent strategic layout. OpenZK is a Layer2 solution based on ZK rollup technology, which integrates native ETH staking, liquidity re-staking, and stablecoin staking into one platform.

The modular blockchain platform Plume has received strategic investment.

Plume, a modular blockchain platform designed for real-world assets, has secured strategic investment. This round of financing will accelerate the development of Plume's full-stack infrastructure and further consolidate its leading position in the RWAfi sector. Plume is building an EVM-compatible blockchain environment and full-stack infrastructure, aimed at transforming traditional financial instruments, carbon credits, and other alternative assets into composable and interactive digital assets, endowing them with new application value in DeFi scenarios.

Other

The encryption dining application Blackbird Labs has completed a $50 million Series B financing.

The encryption dining application Blackbird Labs has completed a $50 million Series B financing round, with multiple institutions participating. This financing is used for company equity and token warrants. Since 2022, Blackbird Labs has raised $85 million. Blackbird is a restaurant loyalty and payment application. Users receive internal encryption currency rewards when they visit registered restaurants, which can be used to pay for meals. Blackbird Labs launched its own blockchain Flynet in February, built on a certain platform.

Web3 financial education platform BugsCoin completes $12 million Series A funding.

The Web3 financial education platform BugsCoin announced the completion of a $12 million Series A financing round, with multiple institutions participating. The new funds will be used for global expansion and localized education projects, upgrading decentralized asset management protocols, developing AI-driven advisory tools, and optimizing token economics while exploring new ecosystem use cases.

Decentralized reading platform Libraro has secured approximately $1.28 million in investment.

The decentralized publishing and reading platform Libraro has secured an additional investment of approximately $1.28 million. The Libraro platform utilizes blockchain technology to protect authors' identities, prevent copyright infringement, and enhance the transparency of ownership and distribution rights. The platform deepens the connections between readers, authors, and publishers through a Web3 loyalty program.

Social communication protocol Towns completes $10 million Series B financing

The decentralized communication protocol Towns has completed a $10 million Series B financing round, with multiple institutions participating. Towns is dedicated to building on-chain communication infrastructure to promote the development of Web3 social and collaboration tools. The project party stated, "The future of communication will move on-chain."

centralized finance

The cryptocurrency insurance company Meanwhile completed a $40 million Series A financing.

The cryptocurrency insurance company Meanwhile has completed a $40 million Series A financing, with participation from multiple institutions. This round of financing values Meanwhile at $190 million, nearly double the valuation during the most recent financing round in 2022. Meanwhile will use the funds for global expansion and to ensure that its products comply with regulatory requirements. Meanwhile's life insurance policy is similar to regular life insurance, but customers must pay with Bitcoin, and families will receive the claim amount in Bitcoin.

The encryption payment center Lyzi has completed a seed round financing of approximately 1.4 million USD.

The encryption payment center Lyzi has completed a seed round financing of approximately $1.4 million, with participation from angel investors. Lyzi is built on a certain blockchain, allowing consumers to use encryption to make daily payments in retail and e-commerce environments. Merchants receive payments in encryption and deposit fiat currency directly into their bank accounts. Lyzi's next step is to launch on a certain EVM-compatible Layer2.

The tokenization platform Progmat has completed its Pre-A round of financing.

The tokenization platform Progmat has completed its Pre-A financing round and introduced three new investors. This round of financing has diluted the equity of existing shareholders. Progmat is one of the main licensed blockchain networks in Japan for issuing digital securities, and its platform will issue a yen stablecoin on a public blockchain.

venture capital fund

An organization has opened an application for a $250 million liquidity fund to support the development of medium and large encryption projects. The fund aims to provide strategic capital and ecosystem support for medium and large token projects, helping them achieve sustainable growth and real-world application implementation.

A certain blockchain network has launched a fund of approximately $108 million to support the tokenization of real-world assets and DeFi. The fund will seek investment opportunities through its partner network over the next four years, deploying funds to "high-potential blockchain projects" globally. The fund will implement an "open policy, welcoming projects at any stage of development from around the world, with particular focus on the RWA and DeFi sectors."