Weekly Recap

Despite a short week in observance of Good Friday, weekly funding rose 17% from $228 million to $268 million across 31 deals. March funding totaled $960 million (with three days remaining), representing the highest figures since March ’23. Monthly deal count has reached 142 thus far, similarly marking the highest tally since 2022. Gaming companies had a strong week of funding, raising $114 million, being slightly edged out by Infrastructure which garnered $121 million. Seed rounds continue to be the most popular deal stage, comprising 24% of weekly funding and 32% of the deal count.

Although not included in the numbers below, there was a notable merger announcement this week between Fetch.AI ($FET), SingularityNET ($AGIX), and Ocean Protocol ($OCEAN). Mergers are not commonplace across crypto protocols, but the three have agreed in principle to merge into an “Artificial Superintelligence Alliance,” creating one token (ASI) encompassing all three protocols. ASI will launch with an FDV of $7.5 billion, as of prices at the time the announcement. Fetch.ai is an open platform for the new AI economy, SingularityNET is focused on decentralized AI, and Ocean is a decentralized data marketplace. Combining all three should realize multiple synergies across the three, creating a comprehensive AI solution.

Funding by Category

Funding by Deal Stage

Deal of the Week

0G Labs, a modular AI blockchain, raised $35 million in a pre-seed round led by Hack VC. Other investors included Alliance, Animoca Brands, Delphi Digital, OKX Ventures, and others. $35 million is one of the largest pre-seed rounds in recent history. Across all other 2023 and 2024 pre-seed rounds, the average deal size is approximately $2 million. The capital will be used to expand the team and develop 0G’s functionality and ecosystem.

Why is this Deal of the Week?

0G, also known as ZeroGravity, is aiming to increase the speed and cost efficiency of Web3 AI applications with its modular infrastructure. Modularity allows applications to choose which technology components are optimized for their products and allows for increased flexibility. Modular solutions have become popular over the past year as developers recognize the difficulty in scaling and securing monolithic chains. 0G’s first product is focused on data availability as DA has become one of the larger bottlenecks in blockchain scalability. They recognize the data demand for crypto AI applications and plan to address it with their verifiable, low latency data feeds. 0G is also building a Web3 interoperability solution called Uni-Chain. 0G believes that for a truly frictionless ecosystem, users need a singular wallet with maximum connectivity and access to liquidity across all chains. In addition to the funding announcement, 0G confirmed that they plan to launch a token in the future.

Selected Deals

Parallel, an on-chain trading card game, raised $35 million in an undisclosed round with participation from notable names including VanEck, Big Brain Holdings, Solana Ventures, The Spartan Group, Golden Chain, and others. Parallel is redefining traditional card games like Pokémon with its NFTs representing trading cards. The funding will be used to expand the Parallel universe across different mediums and platforms.

DappOS, an intent execution network, raised $15.3 million in a Series A round led by Polychain Capital. The funding round valued the DappOS at $300 million and other investors included Flow Traders, Waterdrip Capital, Nomad Capital, Bing Ventures, and others. DappOS is striving to make dApps more user-friendly with core advantages like removing seed phrases, wallet reset options, chainless apps, and account unification.

Alex Labs, the company building the finance layer of Bitcoin, raised $10 million in a strategic round led by The Spartan Group. Other investor participation included CMS Holdings, DWF Labs, Foresight Ventures, Ouroboros Capital, and others. ALEX, or “Automated Liquidity Exchange” is supporting Bitcoin DeFi with products like decentralized exchanges, bridges, oracles, and launchpads, all built on top of Bitcoin. The funding will be used to continue enhancing activity on Bitcoin and expand the team.

Illuvium, a crypto gaming studio, raised $12 million in a Series A funding round led by from The Spartan Group, Animoca Brands, Arrington Capital, and King River. Other investors included Laser Digital (Nomura), Polygon Ventures, Golden Chain, and others. The funding will be used for game development within its ecosystem. Illuvium is one of the larger Web3 gaming studios with its token, $ILV valued at $1.3 billion, fully diluted. Holders can stake their ILV to earn revenues from in-game purchases.