SBF Comes to the Rescue
- This week was an interesting one in funding from both venture capital and debt financing. After the insolvency of the high-profile hedge fund, 3 Arrows Capital, several crypto lending giants, including BlockFi and Voyager who lent money to 3AC, were left with potential losses totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. This caused the widespread panic of contagion risks until FTX and Alameda Research (each of which are companies founded by Sam Bankman-Fried or “SBF”) stepped in to provide capital. FTX signed a term sheet this week with BlockFi for a $250M revolving line of credit, and Alameda entered into a $500M loan with Voyager consisting of $350M USDC and 15,250 BTC. These credit facilities are presumably to help the lending platforms stay afloat and have ample liquidity among customers withdrawing their funds. FTX also made moves on the M&A front, acquiring Canadian trading platform, Bitvo, and Embed Financial technologies, a stock clearing business. This demonstrates just how well-capitalized FTX and Alameda Research are in an industry where many companies are currently facing liquidity issues.
Reports you may have missed
WEEKLY RECAP Weekly funding fell by 34% from $126 million to $83 million, while deal count rose approximately 22% from 18 to 22. Infrastructure was the leading category, totaling $51 million across nine deals and comprising 61% of total funding. CeFi logged its second consecutive week of two deals, including Caliza’s $8.5 million investment round supporting its mission to provide cross-border remittances leveraging stablecoins. Web3 and Gaming deal flow has...
WEEKLY RECAP In the final week of Q2, crypto funding bounced back, rising 64% from $78 million to $128 million, while deal count rose modestly from 18 to 20. The funding total was dominated by Infrastructure, which comprised 88% of the total and also made up 55% of the total deal count. CeFi broke its streak of two weeks with no deal flow with a singular Series A round completed...
WEEKLY RECAP Private funding was suppressed as we enter the summer season, with total funding dropping 43% week-over-week to $66 million and deal count decreasing 52% to 15 deals. Infrastructure still took the top spot from a funding perspective, totaling $31 million across three deals, including Sonic, our Deal of the Week. DeFi tallied the most deals (6) and had the second most funding across categories ($24m). CeFi had its...