Institutional Herald: Aptos raised $150 million and Unstoppable Domains valuation reached $1 billion
The cryptocurrency industry is attracting a growing number of institutional players. New investments in infrastructure and a growing focus by companies The metaverse might on bitcoin as an asset class are both evidence of this. ForkLog reviews the most important events of recent weeks.
FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto backed Aptos in a $150 million round
Aptos’ “scalable blockchain for billions of people” team closed a $150 million Series A funding round.
It was led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto, with participation from Apollo, Griffin Gaming Partners, Franklin Templeton, Circle Ventures, Superscrypt by Temasek, Andreessen Horowitz and Multicoin.
“Aptos could be a solid foundation for Web3. It will allow users from around the world to experience the benefits of decentralization,” said project CEO Mo Shaikh.
With a seed round in March 2022, the startup has raised $350 million.
Unstoppable Domains raised $65 million at $1 billion valuation
Decentralized domain registrar Unstoppable Domains has closed a $65 million Series A funding round. Investors valued the startup at $1 billion.
The round was led by venture capital firm Pantera Capital. Participants include Alchemy Ventures, Spartan Group, OKG Investments, Polygon, CoinDCX, CoinGecko and others.
Funds raised will be used to foster product innovation and expand Web3 partnerships.
Unstoppable Domains – NFT Domain Provider. Each name is a non-interchangeable token (NFT) issued on the Polygon network. According to the press release, the service has registered 2.5 million names, including in the “.bitcoin”, “.nft” and “.dao”.
DST Global Partners and Softbank backed AI startup MarqVision in $20 million round
Intellectual property-focused startup MarqVision closed a $20 million Series A funding round.
DST Global Partners, Atinum Investments, Softbank Ventures, Bass Investment and Y-Combinator participated.
MarqVision is positioned as a SaaS platform powered by artificial intelligence. The system monitors e-commerce and NFT markets, detecting counterfeit products.
Social initiative-focused blockchain company Topl raises $15 million
Topl, which provides blockchain solutions for tracking and monetizing social impact initiatives, raised $15 million in a Series A funding round.
It was co-hosted by Mercury, Republic Asia and Cryptology Asset Group. Founder Chris Georgen said the 2020 seed round raised $5 million.
The project helps businesses that seek to track sustainability-compliant and socially impactful products.
The funds raised will go toward hiring new employees and executing three key aspects of the roadmap: transferring governance to the blockchain community and launching traceability-as-a-service and register-as-a-service applications for carbon credits.
KuCoin has raised $10 million in strategic investment from SIG
Cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin attracted $10 million of strategic investment from American trading company Susquehanna International Group.
The funds raised will be used to upgrade the platform’s infrastructure, expand the product line and hire employees.
KuCoin plans to introduce new services in Asia, Europe and other regions.
Root Protocol, based on the hacked Beanstalk service, raised $9 mln
Root Protocol, a marketplace project for financial, forecasting and trading markets, raised $9 mln in a seed round of funding.
Road Capital, Nima Capital, Soma Capital, Manifest Crypto and other investors participated.
Root is being built on top of the Beanstalk steblecoin protocol, which lost about $181 million in April in a control hack.
Beanstalk releases Bean “stablecoin” with credit backing. Investors buy debt of record that accrues interest income.
The Root team is looking to expand the coin’s use with new markets like interest rate yield swaps or betting platforms.
The funds raised will be used to invest directly in Beanstalk and audit its own protocol.
Bean’s issuer plans to relaunch on Aug. 6. Root developers expect to unveil their product in October.
NFT-marketplace OneOf has raised more than $8 million
NFT music platform OneOf has raised more than $8 million in strategic investment.
Amex Ventures, Snow Hill Ventures, Sangha Capital, Chain Link Crypto Fund and others participated in the round. Including the new investment round, OneOf has raised over $72 million.
The company is positioning itself as a “green NFT platform” based on Tezos blockchain, designed for the music community.
Blockchain startup by former Coinbase employee raises $4.5 million
Blockchain data startup Coherent, founded by former Coinbase employee Carl Cortright, has raised $4.5 million in a seed funding round.
Kindred Ventures, Matchstick Ventures and Foundry Group provided the investment. Other participants include Coinbase Ventures, Alchemy, Chapter One and Dan Romero, one of the first employees of the U.S. Bitcoin Exchange.
Cortright founded Coherent in April 2022 after four years at Coinbase. At the company, he was a senior software engineer and served as a member of the venture capital division.
He said Coherent is working on an API that will allow developers to build applications and offer new features using their data.
He said the platform will attract the next billion users to the crypto industry. The five-person team plans to launch the tool in September.
Dragonfly Capital led Debt DAO’s DeFi project’s seed round
Investment firm Dragonfly Capital led a $3.5 million seed round of startup Debt DAO.
GSR, Numeus and Fasanara Capital also provided funding. They were joined by six business angels, including former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan and David Post of Chainlink Labs.
Debt DAO is positioning itself as a decentralized marketplace that brings together all the elements of the debt finance ecosystem for the DeFi sector.
Also on ForkLog:
- Venture capital investment in the industry exceeded $30 billion in the first half of the year.
- Media learned of Ledger’s plans to raise at least $100 million.
- Cryptventure firm Variant raised $450 million for two new funds.
- Media: Barclays to acquire stake in cryptocurrency firm Copper.
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