Funding round
Monthly Report: VC firms pumped funds into crypto and Web 3 despite May being harsh to investors
Hong Kong-based BABEL Finance hits a $2 billion valuation following latest funding Gaming portal and game creator Kongregate tables a blockchain game development fund with Immutable X Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz plans to heavily support start-ups in the blockchain space by allocating significant investments Israel-based StarkWare sets out to advance its ecosystem with new capital backing The first four months of 2022 appeared to bear the worst of the year in the crypto market, but the slump in Q1 is nothing close to the bloodbath witnessed this month. The total cryptocurrency market capital fell from $2.18 trillion at the start of the year to $1.755 trillion by the end of January. It briefly recovered at the beginning of February before charting successive days abo...
Elwood Technologies bags $70M in investment from Goldman Sachs and Barclays
Elwood Technologies aims to invest in infrastructure rather as opposed to injecting funds into short-term initiatives The company’s latest funding pushed its valuation to $500 million Crypto trading software provider Elwood Technologies has secured a $70 million investment that pushed the company’s valuation to half a billion. According to a report published by Financial Times on May 15, Goldman Sachs and Barclays have teamed up to finance the crypto trading platform founded by British billionaire Alan Howard. The report detailed that venture capital firm Dawn Capital as well as the venture divisions of Germany’s Commerzbank and Galaxy Digital, also took part. The move comes as the crypto scene contends with the top 500 of leading digital assets losing over 50% in value as the crypto ...
Weekly Report: Flamingo Casino Club shuts down, Talos becomes a unicorn, HIVE Blockchain consolidates its shares, and more
Flamingo Casino Club, which offered users fraudulent NFTs, has been asked by five US states to cease operations Crypto trading firm Talos became a unicorn at $1.25 billion after raising $105 million, it said Tuesday Bitcoin miner HIVE Blockchain to enact share consolidation, aiming to enhance institutional visibility IOSCO predicts the crypto sector could get a regulator within the next year Chile to ponder further before issuing a digital peso, central bank says Virtual casino parading metaverse-linked NFTs asked to cease operations in five states The states of New Jersey, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Alabama and Texas have alleged that the Flamingo Casino Club is running a scam by offering NFTs linked to a metaverse casino. In effect, regulators in the respective states issued emergency orders o...
Crypto start-up Argent announces $40 million raise
The London-based firm seeks to make it easier for users to manage its non-custodial wallet offering Part of the funds will be invested in initiatives around DeFi and Web 3 One of the co-founders noted that the firm intends to address the scalability issue of its wallet Argent, the firm behind the eponymous smart wallet, on Thursday disclosed it had completed a Series B funding round that saw it raise $40 million. Two VC firms Fabric Ventures and Metaplanet led the fundraising, which also had participation from Index Ventures, Creandum and Paradigm. Animoca Brands, Jump Crypto, and Starkware (creator of rival Ethereum-scaling solution StarkNet) featured in strategic capacities. Worth noting, StarkNet is the host of Argent’s wallet – Argent X. This explains the strategic colla...
Weekly Report: Bison bank wins crypto license, Nexo and MasterCard to launch a crypto-payments card
Nexo Card was termed the world’s first crypto-backed payments card Circle has completed a $400 million funding round Michael Saylor says MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin buying spree will continue Portugal’s Bison Bank snaps the first-ever VASP license to a bank in the country Dogecoin co-founder Jackson Palmer is unimpressed by Elon Musk’s attempt to acquire Twitter ‘Tremendous success’ CEO Michael Saylor hails MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin buying spree In a recent letter to investors, MicroStrategy CEO and crypto bull Michael Saylor has lauded the decision to flood the firm’s treasury with Bitcoin. He said the company intends to continually “vigorously pursue” this ambition into the future. In the letter embedded in MicroStrategy’s 2022 Proxy Statement dated April 14, Saylor explained to stockhold...
PayMaya’s parent company Voyager Innovations raises $210M
Voyager plans to enhance the services offered by PayMaya, including cryptocurrency solutions The company will use the recent funding to boost its efforts to employ the digital economy in serving the unbanked and underserved. Voyager Innovations, the parent company of the leading digital payments application in the Philippines, PayMaya, has announced that it recently completed a $210 million funding round at a $1.4 billion valuation. Pushing it into unicorn status, the funding round was led by Asia’s SIG Venture Capital. Other investors who participated in the funding round were Tencent, First Pacific, and PLDT – Philippine’s largest telecommunication service provider. “The strong endorsement from our new shareholders and participation of our existing investors in this fundraising validates...
Boba Network to prioritise Ethereum’s computational constraints with a $45M funding
The $45 million Series A round was completed in the fourth quarter of last year via a token sale The hybrid computing platform aims to resolve the ignored scalability aspect of Ethereum – its computational limitations Ethereum overlay solution Boba Network has announced that it completed a $45 million Series A raise during Q4 of 2021. With a valuation of $1.5 billion, Boba has joined the ranks of unicorns within this nascent space. Without a lead investor, the hybrid computing platform enjoyed broad participation, with investors ranging from industry-native venture funds to celebrity figures. Infinite Capital, Crypto.com, Kinetic Capital, Huobi, Hack VC, BitMart, Will Smith, Keisuke Honda, and Paris Hilton were all involved. The network said that funding for the Series was secured via a to...
Lightning Labs secures $70M from Valor Equity-led Series B raise
The Bitcoin-focused firm intends to use the funds to continue advancing its Lightning solutions Lightning Labs also proposed a new protocol, Taro, that will facilitate low-cost stablecoin transactions Lightning Labs yesterday shared news of a $70 million Series B raise, adding that the funds will go into projects set to introduce stablecoin and other asset transfers on Bitcoin. The funding round saw participation from several names, including asset management firm Baillie Gifford and Valor Equity Partners – the latter leading it. Other entities and individuals that took part are NYDIG, Goldcrest Capital, Kingsway, Stillmark, Brevan Howard, Moore Strategic Ventures, Silvergate CEO Alan Lane, and Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev. The California-based, which focuses on the development of software tha...
Lightning Labs secures $70M from Valor Equity-led Series B raise
The Bitcoin-focused firm intends to use the funds to continue advancing its Lightning solutions Lightning Labs also proposed a new protocol, Taro, that will facilitate low-cost stablecoin transactions Lightning Labs yesterday shared news of a $70 million Series B raise, adding that the funds will go into projects set to introduce stablecoin and other asset transfers on Bitcoin. The funding round saw participation from several names, including asset management firm Baillie Gifford and Valor Equity Partners – the latter leading it. Other entities and individuals that took part are NYDIG, Goldcrest Capital, Kingsway, Stillmark, Brevan Howard, Moore Strategic Ventures, Silvergate CEO Alan Lane, and Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev. The California-based, which focuses on the development of software tha...
Monthly Report: Dubai attracts top cryptocurrency exchanges
Dubai recently made strides to regulate its crypto sector, and now everyone is moving there The EU parliament votes for a proposal that could affect privacy around digital asset transfers Ronin is working with authorities to track an attacker who got away with $625 million in crypto assets from the blockchain in March Ethereum is a step closer to the Merge Dubai woos crypto giants as it targets becoming a hub Dubai’s crypto scene pulled in several crypto exchanges last month thanks to the environment it has created for cryptocurrencies. The Arabian city is leading the push for the United Arab Emirates to become a global leader in digital assets. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid, ruler of the UAE, said on March 9 that the emirate of Dubai had established the country’s first-ever regul...
Blockchain.com’s valuation hits $14BN following newly reported raise
The exchange has completed four financing rounds since the start of 2021 Blockchain.com has a customer base of 37 million users and has processed more than $1 trillion in transactions UK-based cryptocurrency exchange Blockchain.com has reportedly concluded a funding round led by one of its previous investors, Lightspeed Ventures Partners, as per a Thursday report from Bloomberg. Independent investment management firm Baillie Gifford had heavy involvement in the raise, which comes at a $14 billion market valuation – more than double the valuation during the previous financing round completed by the exchange. The report didn’t feature details of the sum raised, and neither party involved has made any official communication. In addition to running a platform for trading crypto ass...
Yuga Labs raises $450M as it sets sights on a native metaverse
Yuga labs recently announced the planned launch of Otherside, a metaverse powered by ApeCoin Part of the funds raised in this seed round will be invested in the metaverse project Miami-based NFT creator and parent company of the famed Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Yuga Labs, has completed a $450 million raise at a $4 billion valuation in a just-concluded seed round. It was led by venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), but also saw the participation of other big names in and around crypto, including Animoca Brands, Thrive Capital, MoonPay, Sandbox, FTX and Google Ventures. Founded by Wylie Aronow and Greg Solano in 2021, the company has seen massive growth as a maker of high-value collectables. It now aims to expand to maintain this growth. The resources it has raised will be us...
