Key Takeaways

• FTX buys derivatives exchange and clearinghouse LedgerX for undisclosed amount
• Our Deal of the Week is Blockstream’s $215 million Series B, paving the way for ASIC manufacturing
• Most featured investors include MultiChain Capital, Paradigm, and Galaxy Digital

Venture Capital Deals

Ticker: $1INCH Price: $3.28 Market Cap: $560M

1inch Network, a platform that unites decentralized protocols ideally enabling users to achieve the best price, in a fast and secure manner, is in the process of raising a Series B at a pre-money valuation of $2.25 billion. Galaxy Digital led the round and was joined by Binance Labs, Greenfield One, Libertus Capital, Dragonfly Capital, FTX, IOSG, Kyber Network and Near Protocol Co-Founder. (1inch Network is looking to raise Series B at a $2.25 billion valuation)

Royal, a blockchain-based music investment platform aiming to enable fractional music ownership through NFTs, raised an undisclosed amount in their Series Seed round, valuing the company at $16 million. The round was led by Paradigm, with follow-on investors Founders Funder and Atomic VC. Royal is the brainchild of world-famous DJ 3LAU and successful tech entrepreneur Justin Ross. (DJ 3LAU Raises $16M for NFT-based Music Platform Royal)

Euler, a capital-efficient permissionless lending protocol that helps users to earn interest on their crypto assets or hedge against volatile markets without the need for a trusted third-party, completed an $8 million Series A round led by Paradigm. Euler features a number of innovations not seen before in DeFi, including permissionless lending markets, reactive interest rates, protected collateral, MEV-resistant liquidations, multi-collateral stability pools, sub-accounts, risk-adjusted loans and much more. (DeFi Lending Protocol Euler Closes $8M Series A Round Led By Paradigm)

Ticker: $EXCL Price: $0.17 Market Cap: $1.2M

Exclusible,  a platform for digital goods tailored towards luxury brands that allow customers to buy, trade, and showcase exclusive branded non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has raised €2.2M seed round funding. The round was co-led by Tioga Capital, White Star Capital, and Indico Capital Partners. Exclusible has signed letters of intent with high-end designers and plans to launch later this year with a number of luxury brand. (Exclusible raises €2.2 million seed funding to launch global luxury NFT platform)

Syndicate, a decentralized finance (DeFi) organization focused on investing, has announced a $20 million Series A fundraise. Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (also known as a16z) led the round, alongside an array of over 150 investors. That bevy of backers includes celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Snoop Dogg, alongside investment firms like Coinbase Ventures and Bill Ackman’s Table Management. Examples of the projects that recently launched on Syndicate include Audacity, a fund focused on investing in black and African founders, and the NFT investment fund Delphi INFINFT. (Community-Based Investment Protocol Syndicate Raises $20 million)

Evrynet, a finance DApp, aims to bring institutional investor-friendly features to participate in decentralized finance. Additionally, the team caters to the needs of individual investors through a simple user interface and a growing selection of yield products. Bridging decentralized and real-world assets will create new liquidity sources and opportunities for all dApp users. The private round is led by Signum Capital and participated by Petrock Capital and Ellipti Ventures and others. Also, notable early backers participation from HashKey Capital, Everest Ventures, Hanhwa Investments and Securities, Seven Bank, UOB Venture Management, Uni-President Asset Holdings, Hopeshine Ventures and Du Capital. (Evrynet Raises $7 Million, Aims to Bring DeFi to Institutional Investors)

M&A Deals

FTX acquires LedgerX, the first U.S. – approved crypto derivatives platform. LedgerX is a CFTC regulated Designated Contract Market (DCM), Swap Execution Facility (SEF) and Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO).  LedgerX is available to institutional and retail investors, operating 24/7 and offering physical settlement of all contracts, block trading and algorithmic trading opportunities for institutional investors. The acquisition was done for an undisclosed amount. (Crypto exchange FTX.US wades into derivatives with deal for LedgerX)

Token Sales

Alethea AI, scalable AI infrastructure for NFTs that enables NFTs to be animated, interactive, and intelligent through Open AI Foundation’s GPT-3 technology, raised $16 million in private token sales, valuing the company at $50 million. Lead purchasers include Multicoin Capital, Alameda, Mark Cuban, Bitkraft, Dapper Labs, Galaxy Interactive, Sfermion, LD Capital, Hof Capital, Gemini Frontier Fund, IDEO CoLab, Defiance, Whitestar Capital, IOSG, Nascent, Borderless Capital, and CMS Holdings. (Mark Cuban-backed Alethea AI closes $16M private token sale)

Ticker: $JOE Price: $1.99 Market Cap: $143.6M

Trader Joe, an Avalanche-based DeFi protocol has raised $5 million in a token sale. Lead investors in the round include DeFiance Capital, GBV Capital, and Mechanism Capital. Other backers include Three Arrows Capital, the Avalanche Foundation, Delphi Digital, Coin98 Ventures, Not3Lau Capital, and Aave founder Stani Kulechov. (Avalanche-based DeFi protocol Trader Joe raises $5 million from Three Arrows Capital and others)

Deal of the Week

Blockstream, a leading provider of blockchain technologies raised $210 million in a Series B financing that values the company at an estimated $3.2 billion. U.K. investment management firm Baillie Gifford and iFinex were mentioned as investors.

Why is this a Big Deal? Co-founded by Adam Back in 2014, Blockstream has remained on the forefront of cryptography and distributed systems. Proceeds from this Series B raise will go toward new mining infrastructure to be used in partnerships (such as their collaboration with Square). The remaining funds will be used to build financial infrastructure with bitcoin-focused financial products and Liquid, which is a sidechain-based settlement network that enables faster, more confidential bitcoin transactions.

Blockstream also noted that it has acquired the intellectual property and key employees of Israeli bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer Spondoolies for undisclosed terms. The move paves the way for Blockstream, based in Victoria, British Columbia, to build out a business line making specialized mining chips known as ASICs, which have historically been produced in Asia. (Blockstream Raises $210M, Acquires Mining Chip Manufacturer Spondoolies)