DeFi Deals Rising
Weekly Recap
Funding levels remain muted, rising $9m from last week to $58m this week. Most funds raised came from the DeFi and Infrastructure verticals, with DeFi seeing a jump in interest since the previous few weeks. The largest raise of the week came from the DeFi category, with Liquid Staking provider Helio protocol receiving $10m from Binance labs to expand to Ethereum-based staking. There were also a few strategic token sales from DeFi protocols Curve and Rocketpool, showing an appetite for token sales by existing players on the market. Funding remains concentrated in the early stages, with two-thirds of deals announced for seed round projects this week. In addition to DeFi, investors continue to bet on essential infrastructure tools like wallets and security providers.
Funding by Category
Funding by Deal Stage
Deal of The Week
This week’s Deal of the Week is Spearbit, which raised $7 million in an undisclosed round led by Framework Ventures with participation from Nascent, 1kx, Volt Capital, Breed VC, Robot Ventures, and others. The funds will be utilized to further develop Cantina, their open marketplace designed for web3 security auditors. Additionally, the company’s co-founder, Spencer Macdonald, revealed that the investment will also be used to expand their team of software engineers to automate their service and product marketplace processes. In late 2021, the startup secured $1.5 million in a pre-seed funding round, increasing its overall raised capital to $8.5 million. Although the exact valuation wasn’t disclosed by the startup, according to PitchBook data, its post-money valuation is estimated to be approximately $48 million.”
Why is this the Deal of the Week?
Spearbit, founded in November 2021 with strong ties to the Ethereum Foundation, is on a mission to revolutionize security within the cryptocurrency domain. With over 100 meticulously vetted researchers available for hire on their marketplace, they’ve collaborated with major players like OpenSea and Polygon. By launching products such as Cantina Managed Service and Cantina Guilds, Spearbit aims to provide a platform that enhances project flow for individual auditors and accommodates smaller specialized audit firms.
Spearbit’s emergence signifies a pivotal step toward rectifying these concerns in a field marred by inadequate security measures. By fostering a transparent marketplace, they tackle the problem of opaque pricing prevalent in traditional auditing firms. Moreover, they address the work-life imbalance faced by auditors in these firms. Spearbit’s comprehensive approach not only promises to elevate security standards but also reshape the work dynamics of auditors, creating a noteworthy transformation in the crypto security landscape.
Selected Deals
Coinbase Ventures has strategically invested in Rocket Pool, a liquid staking protocol, purchasing an undisclosed amount of RPL, the protocol’s native token. Rocket Pool facilitates individual participation in Ethereum network validation by enabling users to fund validators and earn rewards, regardless of their holding size. This move underscores Coinbase’s commitment to decentralized innovation within the crypto space. Rocket Pool stands as a prominent liquid staking network on Ethereum, boasting over 3,100 node operators and 780,000 ETH staked, while its RPL token currently trades at $28.35 with a market cap of $556 million.
Binance Labs has invested $5 million in Curve DAO Token (CRV), the token powering the Curve ecosystem, emphasizing collaboration and the future of DeFi. Curve, the largest stableswap and second-largest DEX with $2.4 billion TVL and $215 million daily volume, facilitates efficient token exchange. This investment signifies Binance Labs’ support for Curve’s expansion, including exploration of deployment to BNB Chain, which is expected to boost the BNB Chain DeFi ecosystem.
Bitcoin Web3 wallet Xverse has secured $5 million in a seed round led by prominent investor Jump Crypto, signaling the company’s intent to fast-track the development of advanced features tied to DeFi, Stacks, Lightning, and Bitcoin scaling solutions. Xverse, based in Hong Kong, is known for supporting Ordinals, a novel approach to creating NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain through inscription. The recent surge in daily new inscriptions, reaching 350,000, underscores the significance of this method. Xverse’s availability across multiple platforms further amplifies its impact on the industry.
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