In 2023, Web3 financing focuses on infrastructure, with five potential projects attracting significant attention.

A total of 1,178 financing events occurred throughout 2023, with a total financing amount of $2.839 billion, according to statistics from the data platform. In terms of financing scale, the infrastructure sector ranks first.

Many top investment institutions, such as a16z, a certain trading platform's lab, and Paradigm, have all focused on the infrastructure sector as a key strategic direction. Although each institution has different preferences for various sectors, the infrastructure sector occupies a significant proportion in their investment portfolios. In addition, a16z is particularly focused on the gaming field; Polychain, Coinbase Ventures, and a certain trading platform's lab show strong interest in the DeFi sector; while Paradigm has a relatively smaller number of investments, with a more balanced distribution across various fields.

Next, we will focus on several potential projects in the infrastructure sector:

B² Network

B² Network is an EVM-compatible Rollup that is based on Bitcoin's zero-knowledge proof verification commitment. It records Rollup data and zk proof verification commitments on the Bitcoin network and ultimately confirms them through a challenge-response mechanism. The project participated in a Bitcoin ecosystem project roadshow organized by a certain organization in 2023 and successfully received investment. It is understood that the core technology team members of B² Network are active in mainstream open-source communities such as Ethereum and Bitcoin.

Recently, B² Network has upgraded from the Alpha testnet to the Haven Beta testnet. Currently, users can participate in the ongoing Odyssey mission through its official website.

Mind Network

Mind Network is dedicated to bringing the next billion users and trillions of dollars in market value to Web3, serving as a zero-trust layer. It provides security and data privacy solutions capable of achieving true CrossFi scale, compliant with regulatory requirements while adhering to the principles of asset tokenization and personal data ownership in Web3. The project was also previously selected for the fifth season incubation program of a certain trading platform's lab and the Chainlink BUILD program.

On June 29, 2023, Mind Network announced the completion of a $2.5 million seed round financing, with investors including a certain platform laboratory, Comma3 Ventures, SevenX Ventures, and HashKey Capital.

Omni Network

Omni is the interoperability layer for Ethereum, serving as the core infrastructure to support all modular applications on Ethereum. Developers can break through the limitations of a single Rollup or execution environment to build applications that span the Ethereum ecosystem while accessing all users and capital. Omni originated from the DeFi protocol Rift Finance, which provided financial services for Web3 projects.

Omni has raised $18 million in funding, with investors including Coinbase Ventures, Jump Capital, and Pantera Capital. In June 2023, its testnet went live. Currently, the official has not announced any information regarding airdrop plans, which is worth keeping an eye on.

Wormhole

Wormhole is a decentralized universal messaging protocol that enables developers and users of cross-chain applications to fully leverage the advantages of multiple ecosystems.

Wormhole completed a $225 million funding round at a valuation of $2.5 billion, with investors including Coinbase Ventures, Folius Ventures, and Multicoin Capital, making it the largest funding round of 2023.

CESS

CESS is committed to building a blockchain-based distributed cloud storage system. By effectively managing distributed resources through virtualization technology, it provides customers with consistent and efficient distributed storage services. The CESS global content delivery network enables users to easily access their data anytime and anywhere.

In December 2023, CESS completed a funding round of $8 million, with investors including DWF Labs and Infinity Ventures Crypto.

The CESS team won the championship at a Web3 hackathon organized by a certain foundation in 2021, and has passed all three milestones funded by the foundation. According to the officially released roadmap, CESS plans to issue tokens in 2024. Currently, CESS is active on a certain task platform, where users can participate in its testnet phase.