Key Takeaways

• NFT projects raised  $185 million while payments companies raised over $600 million and new venture capital aggregate funds were $1.285 billion this week
  
• Deal of the Week: Crypto exchange FTX raises $420 million at a $25 billion valuation
  
• Active investors this week include Galaxy Digital, CMS, Polychain and Ribbit Capital

Venture Capital Deals

Deel is an international payroll, human resources and compliance management platform that helps companies manage international employees. Deel is a global platform for remote distributed teams. The Company has raised a Series D funding round of $425 million at a $5.5 billion valuation. Investors that participated in the deal include Coatue, Andreessen Horowitz, the YC Continuity Fund, Spark Capital, Greenbay Ventires and NEO. COVID and technology has reshaped traditional workspaces and has created a remote work industry that continues to grow. (With Customers like Coinabse and Shopify, remote hiring startup Deel raises $425M at a $5.5B valuation).

Sublime is a decentralized finance lending platform seeking to make access to credit accessible thru  DeFi loans. The Company has raised $2.5 million in seed funding to grow its digital reputation-based loan platform. The investor group that participated in the capital raise includes Galaxy Digital, Electric Capital, FinTech Collective among others. The platform will allow users to create customizable loan petitions that lenders can participate until funds are raised. Lenders will be able to access borrowers’ history by looking at their digital identities, past loan performance and interaction via social platforms with other users. (Social Finance Startup Sublime raises $2.5M to Democratize Credit).

XanPool is a payments infrastructure company that offers on/off ramp services. The Company has raised $27million in a Series A funding round. Investors in the funding round include Valar Ventures, CMT Digital, amongothers. The Company has over 5,000 users and 400 business partners. XanPool conducts business in over 13 countries across Asia Pacific and has plans to expand. The payments and crypto on/off ramps sector has experienced some of the most funding capital inflows in 2021. (Hong Kong-based fintech XanPool raises $27M for its decentralized payment network).

zkLink is a cross-chain decentralize exchange (DEX) that implements zero-knowledge rollups (zk-rollups) technology. The DEX has raised $8.5 million in a seed funding round. Republic Crypto led seed round and included other investors like Huobi Ventures, DeFi Alliance, Ascensive Assets, Morningstar Ventures, GSR, Arrington Capital and Marshland Capital. The DeFi space continues to grow and the need to provide better user experience and chain interoperability to trade assets continues to attract venture capital investments.  (Decentralized Exchange ZkLink Raises $8.5M Ahead of Market Launch).        

Mojito is a platform that allows users to mint NFTs, ensure compliance and enable perpetual royalties. The Company has raised $20 million in funding. The leading platform for art and luxury, Sotheby’s has invested in the latest round, with additional participation from Future Perfect Ventures, Moore Strategic Ventures, CMT Digital Sfermion and Ancient. The latest round brings NFT Studio Mojito to a $100 million valuation. Auction-house Sotheby’s held its first NFT auction in April 2021. Sotheby’s sold an art piece from the anonymous digital artist Pak for $17 million, followed by the sell of a rare CryptoPunk NFT for $11.8 million, among other NFT sales. Sotheby has sold over $55 million worth of digital art / NFTs in 2021. The NFT market has been on  a hot streak, 3Q21 trading volumes reached $10.7 billion. (Tech Platform Behind Sotheby’s NFT Metaverse Raises $20 Million).

PsyOptions is a Solana-native platform offering options for liquidity mining and NFT derivatives. The platform has raised $3.5 million in a new funding round. The investment was led by Alameda Research with additional participation from Airspeed18, Ledger Prime,  MGNR, CMS Holdings and Wintermute. Users will be able to trade completely trustless American style options for any SPL token. By providing this clearing house infrastructure to the Solana ecosystem, builders, participants and investors in the community will be able to align incentives and increase composability between protocols. (PsyOptions Raises $3.5M for Options Liquidity Mining and NFT Derivatives).

Republic is a family of companies, including a multi-asset retail investment platform, a private capital division with almost $1 billion in assets under management, and a blockchain consultancy arm, that provides technical, financing, distribution, and tokenization services. The Company has closed a $150 million Series B funding round from investors such as Valor Equity Partners, Galaxy Interactive, Motley Fool Ventures, HOF Capital, Tribe Capital, CoinFund, Pillar VC, among others. The Company had previously raised $36 million in a Series A round in March. (Republic Closes $150M Series B Funding Round).

Element Finance is an open-source protocol for fixed and variable yield markets. The platform has raised $32 million in a Series A round at a $320 million valuation. Polychain Capital led the Series A investment round. New Investors include Republic, Advanced Blockchain, P2P Validator, Rarestone, Ethereal Ventures among others. Element Finance has been  creating a new Ethereum-based DeFi protocol that lets users earn predictable fixed rate returns on investments over predetermine periods of times. Since launching in June, the protocol already has north of $180 million in total value locked (TVL). Element Finance has created a treasury management system to bring funds, institutions and other DeFi protocols onboard and allocate capital into the platform. With over 9,000 users and new funding, the platform plans to expand.  (Element Finance, DeFi  Fixed-rate Protocol, Raises $32M in a Series A Round at $320M valuation).

Manta Network is a privacy layer protocol build on top of Polkadot. The Company has raised $5.5 million. Investors that participated in the round include CMS Holdings, Spartan Group, Divergence, Global Coin Ventures, Skyvision Capital, among others. The platform is tackling a DeFi concern, privacy preservation by building ZKSnark architecture directly into the base layer. Earlier this year, the Company raised $1.1 million from Polychain Capital, Alameda Research and Defiance Capital, among other investors. (Polkadot-based privacy project Manta Network raises $5.5M).

Animoca Brands is a global developer and publisher of mobile games and products based on popular  intellectual property. The Company has raised $65 million at a $2.2 billion valuation. Animoca has issued more than 42.8 million of new equity shares at a price of $1.51 per share. Investors backings the deal include Ubisoft, Liberty City Ventures, Sequoia China, Dragonfly Capital, among others. The firm has raised close to $205 million in funding in 2021. Funding for the blockchain gaming and NFT sector has seen significant inflows recently, large capital raises include projects like SkyMavis, Sorare, Dapper Labs, Mythical, Concept Art and Bitkraft. (Animoca Brands raise $65M at $2.2B from Ubisoft and others).

Copper is a full suite crypto service provider that offers prime brokerage, custody and settlements for institutional clients. The Company closed a $50 million capital raise in May of 2021, led by Dawn Capital. Currently, the company is said to be raising a $500 million round at a $2.5 billion valuation. Crypto custodians like Copper have raised over $1.8 billion in investments in 2021. Recent major news for the crypto custodian include Former UK finance minister Philip Hammond joining the firm as a senior adviser to provide strategy consulting. Another big piece of news is that crypto exchange-traded products (ETP) issuer 21Shares has tapped Copper as a custody provider for its crypto ETPs. (UK crypto firm Copper set to raise up to $500 million).

Tala is an emerging markets digital lender that offers micro-loans to consumers and business owners. The Company recently raised $145 million in Series E funding led by Upstart, joined by The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) Enterprise Fund, Kindred Ventures and J. Safra Group. The funding round values Tala a little north of $800 million and has differed from prior rounds consisting of debt and equity. Leveraging data science, Tala will use the fresh round of funding to create a mobile-first crypto product that caters to the 3 billion unbanked and underbanked in developing countries. Funding for crypto-adjacent companies in emerging markets have proliferated of late, with Citcon raising a further $30 million Series C and partnering with Flexa to bring digital currency payments to merchants worldwide.(Tala grabs $145M to offer more financial services in emerging markets).

Plum is a UK-based investment app that algorithmically saves money for users across a broad range of financial products. It has raised $14 million of an expected $24 million Series A funding led by a consortium of investors, including Ventura Capital, dmg ventures, alongside existing backers Global Brain, VentureFriends and 500 Startups. Angel investors Francesco Simoneschi, co-founder and CEO of TrueLayer, and Charles Delingpole, founder and CEO of ComplyAdvantage, also invested in the round. The raise will be followed by a crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube later in the month, for which 20,000 potential backers have registered interest. The startup plans to use new funding to explore the launch of a spending card and crypto products on its platform, expected to go live in mid-2022. In doing so, Plum endeavors to join the likes of Revolut to build a “financial super app” that allows users to save and manage investments all on one platform.
(Plum rakes in $14m of new funding).

Candy Digital is a next-generation non-fungible token (NFT) company focused on the global sports space. They raised $100 million in Series A funding at a $1.5 billion valuation, co-led by Insight Partners and Softbank Vision Fund 2, with additional participation from Connect Ventures, Will Ventures, Gaingels, Com2Us and Athletes Syndicate. The funding will be used to expand Candy Digital’s product footprint and creative capabilities, including creating new fan experiences through reinventing ticketing models. Candy Digital has existing partnerships with Major League Baseball, Major League Baseball Players Association, Race Team Alliance, and several college athletes. With professional sports incurring an estimated $18 billion of revenue loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic, teams are increasingly turning to NFTs as a way to boost fan engagement, and Candy Digital is poised to capitalize on this new wave of monetization.
(Candy Digital Secures $100 Million Investment in Series A Round).

New Venture Funds

Former Riot Games veterans have launched a new firm called Patron, Patron raised a $90 million Web3-focused Fund. GameFi and Play-to-earn video gaming has seen one of the biggest user growth in the blockchain space in 2020 and 2021, accelerated by the COVID pandemic. Backers of Patron are betting on the founders’ previous experience at Riot games, one of the most player-focused game developer and publisher in the world to bring their expertise to develop the next generation of Web3 games. Blockchain-based games that have seen significant user growth this year include Axie Infinite, Roblox, Sandbox,  among others. (Riot Games Vets Raise $90M for Patron, A ‘Spectrum of Play’ Web3 Fund).

Polkadot (DOT) is a network protocol that allows arbitrary data to be transferred across blockchains. The Polkadot treasury currently holds 18,936,300 DOT tokens. Gavin Wood, the creator of DOT plans to use the treasury (“Fund”) to invest in projects that would help the network grow. The $77 million Fund will focus on developing Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications.  If the treasury is not used, tokens are slowly burned. Good added that close to 240,000 DOT get burned every month. Current, the Fintech company plans to work with Coinbase’s Bison Trials to sync up Polkadot parachain networks to Karura and Acala. (Polkadot unveils a $770M development fund ahead of parachain auctions).

Galaxy Interactive is an affiliate of Galaxy Digital, a diversified financial services and investment management company in the digital asset, cryptocurrency and blockchain space. Galaxy Interactive has raised $325 million that will go into Galxy’s second fund. The fund is dedicated to NFTs and interactive gaming startups. These two sectors have since the most capital inflows from venture investors as well as the most adoption and trading among community users. Galaxy Digital manages more than $2.2 billion of assets under management. (Galaxy Digital Affiliate Raises $325M Fund for NFTs and Interactive Gaming).

Multicoin Capital is n investment firm that invests in cryptocurrencies, digital assets and blockchain companies. The firm has raised $250 million for a third crypto-focused venture fund. Earlier this year, the Company had raised $100 million for their second fund. Multicoin has joined the new spree by VC firms to raise new funds dedicated to the crypto space. Major new funds this year include Binace $1 billion fund, Andresseen Horowitz $2.2 billion fund and Paradigm $1.5 billion fund. Multicoin Capital’s portfolio include projects like Arweave, Audius, Bakkt, Coin98, Dfinity, Helim, MobieCoin, NEAR, Skale, Solana among many others. (Multicoin Capital to Raise $250M for Its Third Crypto Fund).

Crypto Capital Markets

Blockchain Moon Acquisition Corp (BMAC) is a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The Company has registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch a $100 million  initial public offering (IPO) worth of shares. BMAC has priced 10 million shares at $10 per unit and are expected to be listed next week on NASDAQ (Ticker: BMAQU). The rise of crypto SPAC has been noticeable in 2021 with major ones including Bakkt, eToro, Bullish and others. (Blockchain ‘Blank Check’ SPAC announces $100M IPO to Fund Acquisitions).

Stronghold Digital Mining went public Wednesday on NASDAQ (Ticker: SDIG) at $19 per share, offering 6.7 million shares. SDIG soared close to 70% on its IPO debut. The surge of the stock could have been attributed to Bitcoins latest price rally this week. At its peak, SDIG had a market capitalization of nearly $2 billion. Demand for SDIG shares was strong and the Company was able to increase its IPO price per share to $19, compared to the anticipated $16 – $18 range. Investor demand to gain crypto and blockchain exposure has seen a significant increase this year as investors have deployed large amounts of capital into “crypto stocks” as they seek to diversify their portfolios. SDIG’s biggest competitors include Marathon Digital Assets (MARA), Hut 8 (HUT), Riot Blockchain (RIOT), Bit Digital (BTBT), Hive Blockchain (HIVE) Bit Mining (BITM), among others.

Deal of the Week

FTX Trading, Ltd is a centralized crypto exchange specializing in derivatives and leverage products. The exchange has captured the attention from major institutional buyers. The crypto exchange has closed a $420 million Series B-1 round at a $25 billion valuation. Investors in the latest round include Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, BlackRock, Sequoia Capital among other top-quality investors.

Why is this a Big Deal ?

In July, the exchange raised a $900 Series B funding round at an $18 billion valuation. In just three short months, the valuation has increased $7 billion. The FTX user base has increased almost 50% since July and trading volumes grew 75%, averaging $14 billion in daily volumes. In September, FTX acquired LedgerX, a CFTC regulated Designated Contract Market (DCM) Swap Execution Facility (SEF), and Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO). LedgerX is available to both retail and institutional investors 24×7 and offers physical settlement of all contracts, block trading and algorithmic trading opportunities for institutional investors. FTX is exploring expansion and the new capital could be used for new acquisitions to bolster its suite of institutional and retail clients.