Key Takeaways

• NFT platforms raised a combined $933 million, and infrastructure raised $155 million in new funding this week
• Deal of the Week: Sorare, a soccer-NFT platform closed a $680 million Series B funding round
• Active investors this week include Softbank, Coinbase Ventures, and Digital Currency Group

Venture Capital Deals

Blockdaemon, a New York-based startup that builds blockchain nodes and other tech, has raised $155 million at a valuation of $1.26 billion. The Series B funding was led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. New investors include Matrix Capital Management, Sapphire Ventures and Morgan Creek Digital. Existing investors consist of Boldstart Ventures, Goldman Sachs, Greenspring Associates, CoinFund, Kenetic, Kraken Ventures, Borderless Capital, and Lerer Hippeau. (Blockdaemon Raises $155 Million in Series B Funding).

Taker Protocol, a crypto liquidity protocol for NFTs, has raised $3 million from several reputable investors to build new financial primitives into the burgeoning NFT market. Taker Protocol focuses on improving the liquidity available in the NFT market. Due to the unique non-fungible structure of NFTs, existing DeFi primitives are difficult to integrate into the market, resulting in significant issues in terms of overall liquidity. The value of an NFT is extremely volatile and often effectively becomes zero as no buyers can be found at any reasonable price. Furthermore, NFTs are difficult to use productively after purchase and often end up forgotten in the user’s wallet. The round was led by Electric Capital, with DCG, Ascentive Assets, Dragonfly Capital, Spartan Group, The LAO, Sfermion, and Morningstar Ventures participating as well. (Taker Protocol Raises $3 Million to Transform NFT Liquidity and Utilization).

Cobo, a Singapore-based crypto asset management platform, raised $40 million in a Series B funding round to accelerate the development of decentralized finance as a service (DFaaS). The round was co-led by DST Global, A&T Capital and IMO Ventures.

The company will use its proceeds for the development of DeFi as a service (DFaaS) infrastructure and its existing custody services such as wallet as a service (WaaS), trading and staking as a service (StaaS). The funding will also be used to apply for regulatory licenses to ensure strict compliance to the relevant anti-money laundering (AML) and counter the financing of terrorism (CFT) requirements. (Cobo bags $40 million Series B).

Latin America-based crypto services firm Ripio has raised $50 million in a new Series B funding round. Ripio offers various services such as a wallet and crypto exchange. The company intends to use the funds to further develop its products and teams as well as boost international expansion. Digital Currency Group (DCG) led the funding round, and additional investors include venture capital firm Amplo, Draper Ventures and Boost VC among others. MercadoLibre CEO Marcos Galperin and Globant CEO Martin Migoya also participated as individual investors. (Crypto services startup Ripio raises $50 million in Series B funding round).

DeSo, which is short for decentralized social, is one of the most ambitious challenges to Facebook, whose hold over data has let it build a powerful advertising machine, and create a quasi-monopoly that includes its subsidiaries, Instagram and WhatsApp. DeSo aims to solve these problems and introduce a new model for content distribution by decentralizing social media the same way Bitcoin and Ethereum are decentralizing the traditional financial system. DeSo has raised over $200 million from Silicon Valley and crypto investors, including Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, Winklevoss Capital, Pantera Capital, Polychain Capital and Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian. (Decentralized “Facebook Killer Attracts $200 Million Funding).

Dapper Labs is better known as the maker of NBA Top Shots. At Top Shot, users can buy digital cards that represent NBA players and moments. They can then buy and sell some of their cards to other players. The value of these digital collectibles can go up and down over time.

The platform is based on NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. Each digital card is registered as a unique token on a blockchain. Dapper Labs has developed Flow, a new blockchain built for scalability and practical use cases, such as NBA Top Shot. Dapper Labs has raised another $250 million in funding, bringing the company to a valuation of $7.6 billion. Coatue led the new investment. Existing investors include Andreessen Horowitz, GV and Version One Ventures. Some new investors are also joining the round, such as BOND and GIC. (Dapper Labs Raises Another $250 Million).

New Crypto Funds

Decentralized finance (DeFi) firm Kava Labs has launched a $185 million Ignition Fund that will be used to support decentralized finance (DeFi) projects and onboard new projects. With three protocols, $2.1 billion in assets on-chain, over 280k users, and $1.8 billion in cross-chain transactions and counting, the Kava Platform has proven itself as a secure, accessible home for DeFi. Through its evolution, a blueprint for true scale has emerged; one that combines technical innovation with a user-centric process to deliver the kind of scale that is needed to bridge the gap.  (Kava Expands DeFi with $185  Million Fund).

Kavita Gupta — a former executive at ConsenSys will launch a $50 million fund called Delta Blockchain Fund. The Fund is a strategic partner for outstanding founders building products to scale and support a decentralized world irrespective of their chain solution. Investors include Perle Venture, Skyvision and family offices. Other backers include crypto executives like Diogo Monica, founder of Anchorage; Richard Ma, founder of Quantstamp; and Samyak Jain of InstaDapp. (Fomer ConsenSys Venture Exce launches fund).

Deal of the Week

Sorare, a soccer-focused NFT trading platform, has announced a $680 million Series B fundraise led by SoftBank. The latest round values Sorare at $4.3 billion. Atomico, Bessemer Ventures, D1 Capital, Eurazeo, IVP and Liontree are all investing in the startup for the first time alongside SoftBank, with existing backers Benchmark, Accel and Headline also participating.

Why is this a Big Deal?

Sorare lets fans trade non-fungible token (NFT) trading cards of superstar players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Antoine Griezmann, which are underpinned by the Ethereum blockchain. Founded in 2018, the Paris-based startup has notched $150 million in cards sales so far this year.

The platform’s monthly active paying users grew by 34 times between the second quarter of 2020 and the second quarter of this year, with quarterly sales up 51 times over the same period. It currently boasts 600,000 registered users and has licensed players from over 180 soccer organizations, including Real Madrid, Liverpool and Juventus.