Infrastructure & Web3 Maintain VC Attention
Compared to last week, funding has decreased $159 million from $474 million to $315 million, representing a 33% weekly decrease. Infrastructure continues to be a highlight of fundraising, accounting for almost a third of the total amount raised this week. Web3 was also a strong category this week, raising $51 million across four deals. Space and Time is tied for the largest web3 deal this week, raising $20 million in a strategic investment round led by Microsoft’s M12 Fund. Space and Time seeks to become a decentralized data warehouse to power the trustless web.
It was a robust week for crypto fund & ecosystem raises. A total of $865 million was raised across four different deals. The largest deal was London-based Fasanara Capital, which raised a $350 million venture capital fund dedicated to finding pioneers in web3 and fintech. Fasanara capital has over $3.5 billion in AUM and additionally has a team devoted purely to arbitrage trading and lending of digital assets.
Early-stage deals continue to make up the majority of fundraises. Seed rounds and Series-A rounds accounted for 60% of deals this week. There was an uptick in strategic rounds this week, totaling 20% of all deals compared to 0% in each of the previous two weeks.
Deal of The Week:
Coral, the crypto startup behind Anchor, the most prominent smart contract developer framework for Solana, has raised $20M in a strategic round led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto, with participation from Multicoin Capital and Anagram, among others. Coral plans to use the funding to expand its team to help launch its next product – Backpack. According to Coral, Backpack is “an interactive, first-of-its-kind wallet that delivers crypto native experiences” through its executable NFTs (xNFTs).
Why is this Deal of the Week?
Crypto wallets today are very rudimentary, and Coral looks to take crypto wallets to the next level with Backpack. Coral’s goal for Backpack is to have it be the “portal into web3” according to founder Armani Ferrante. Users of Backpack can not only store tokens and NFTs like they can in a regular crypto wallet but also view and access a library of xNFTs. xNFTs act as gateways to other applications, much like apps on an iPhone. Examples of potential xNFTs in the Backpack wallet are applications that allow users to buy or sell their NFTs or access dApps such as the Mango Markets directly from the wallet.
Coral’s team is also putting a significant emphasis on security in their development of Backpack. This is especially important, as just recently, a data breach involving Solana wallets resulted in a hacker stealing millions of user funds. Coral’s team hopes that Backpack’s direct access to applications from within the wallet will prevent phishing attacks, a very prevalent attack in crypto.
Ramnik Arora, head of product at FTX, said in a statement regarding Coral, “this is potentially the iPhone launch moment for web3, with xNFTs as apps, xNFT marketplace as the app store, and CoralOS as the iOS.”
Selected Deals
MPCH Labs is an infrastructure-based platform aiming to develop various products that utilize Multi-Party Computation (MPC) technology. The company has secured $50M in funding through its Series A round led by Liberty City Ventures. In addition, the funding round also included investor participation from Animoca Brands, LedgerPrime, QCP Capital, Polygon Studios, and others. MPCH Labs intends to allocate most of the capital raised towards Fraction, an application designed for institutions that provides a secure way to manage workflow policies, assets, and wallets.
Aspen Creek Digital Corporation is an infrastructure-based Bitcoin (BTC) mining company. The platform aims to power its mining operations through sustainable and renewable energy. The firm will rely on solar, wind, and battery generation to achieve this. The company has secured $8M in funding through its Series A round co-led by Polychain Capital and Galaxy Digital. In addition, the funding round also included investor participation from Gaingels, Copper River Energy Partners, Mana Ventures, and others.
Aikon is an infrastructure-based platform aiming to help increase blockchain adoption. The platform plans to accomplish this through the Open Rights Exchange (ORE) Network. The company has raised $10M in funding through its Series A round led by Morgan Creek Digital. In addition, the funding round also included investor participation from Mighty Capital, Blizzard, Up2 Opportunity Fund, and others. Aikon intends to allocate the capital raised towards accelerating the development of its product offerings.
AQUA is a web3-based marketplace and community platform for gamers aiming to integrate non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in gaming titles. The platform has already established partnerships with the Guild of Guardians and God’s Unchained, with plans to add new titles every month. In addition, the company has raised $10M in funding from DIGITAL, a firm backed by Steve Cohen.
Solvo is a CeFi-based mobile application platform aiming to simplify investing in cryptocurrency. The platform hopes to accomplish this by offering its users vaults, bundles, and the ability to buy/sell a selected list of tokens. The company has raised $3.5M in funding through its seed round at a $17.5M valuation led by Index Ventures. In addition, the funding round also included investor participation from FJ Labs and CoinFund. Solvo intends to release its application in October 2022.
