According to BlockBeats statistics, there were a total of 15 financing deals last week, which is a decrease compared to previous weeks. The total amount raised was approximately 157.55 million US dollars, with an average financing amount of 10.5033 million US dollars. The infrastructure sector accounted for the majority of the deals, followed by the Metaverse/GameFi sector. Financing in the digital asset management/payment sector and other sectors increased, while financing in the social/creator economy and DeFi sectors decreased. There were no financing deals in the NFT/digital fashion and Web3+AI sectors. The following chart shows the financing distribution across different sectors last week:

Metaverse/GameFi

In the field of Metaverse/GameFi, a total of 2 financings were completed with a total amount of 41.2 million US dollars, accounting for 26.15% of the total financing amount last week.

Proof of Play

On September 21st, Proof of Play, a startup company in the blockchain gaming industry, completed a $33 million seed round of financing. The round was jointly led by a16z and Greenoaks. In addition to Ravikant, who had previously invested in Uber and Twitter, other participants in this round of financing included Balaji Srinivasan, Justin Kan and Emmett Shear, the founders of Twitch, as well as Mercury, Firebase, Zynga and Alchemy.

Proof of Play was founded by Mahajan and is both a game studio and a technology company. Its mission is to create fun and accessible blockchain games while developing innovative technology to make blockchain game development easier for everyone. The physical world is a zero-sum game with scarce energy and resources. In contrast, the digital world has no such limitations. Unless introduced by creators or game designers, digital scarcity does not exist. One of the goals of Proof of Play's building tools is to make everyone a creator and let the creator community manage their world rules. Proof of Play believes that as long as the designed technology does not limit creators and building on others' creations becomes trivial, user-driven content will experience explosive growth.

Currently, Proof of Play is focused on building and enhancing the first game, Pirate Nation, which is a fully on-chain role-playing game (RPG). Players can recruit their own pirate crew, battle with amazing creatures, and compete with other players for the top spot on the leaderboard. The game has recently been made available for free so that more people can easily try out on-chain gaming. Pirate Nation is also Proof of Play's sandbox, serving as a research project aimed at solving various challenges in order to bring on-chain gaming to every player on different devices.

Geeiq

On September 19th, according to Vogue Business, Geeiq, a meta-universe data analysis service provider specializing in the fashion industry, announced the completion of a £6.6 million (approximately $8.2 million) Series A financing round, led by YFM Equity Partners, with participation from GFR Fund and FOV Ventures.

Geeiq was founded in 2018 with the aim of providing a subscription-based gaming data platform. The data is derived from public information, including detailed information on game fans such as age, gender, income, and brand affinity. Since then, it has evolved into a metaverse insight company, providing brands with higher-level membership. Geeiq's services include consulting, introductions to developers and creators, and customized data insights on how to sell digital goods and build strategies on platforms such as Roblox, Zepeto, Decentraland, and Fortnite.

Geeiq has about 30 employees, and the new investment will be used to hire new talent, expand geographically (including the United States), and establish proprietary relationships with leading platforms. Geeiq recently appointed Michel Cassius, who has worked at Apple, game company Electronic Arts, and Microsoft Xbox, as chairman.

DeFi

There were a total of 1 financing in the DeFi field, with a total amount exceeding 7.1 million US dollars, accounting for 4.51% of the total financing amount last week.

GRVT

On September 19th, the hybrid encryption trading platform GRVT announced the completion of two rounds of financing totaling $7.1 million, with a valuation of $39 million. GRVT stated that the seed round of financing was $5 million, jointly led by Matrix Partners and Delphi Digital, and other investors in this round of financing include ABCDE, Susquehanna Investment Group, CMS Holdings, Hack VC, and Matter Labs (the developer of the Ethereum L2 network zkSync). The pre-seed round of financing was $2.1 million, with support from investors such as 500 Startups and Folius Ventures.

GRVT co-founder and CEO Hong Yea said: "The creation of GRVT is to prevent another FTX from happening, because we never hold customer funds, but aim to provide a very user-friendly experience for both mature users transitioning from traditional investors to crypto-native traders and retail users, offering the efficiency of centralized trading platforms and the self-custody feature of decentralized trading platforms."

It is reported that the new funds will be used to expand the licensing scope of GRVT. The company currently holds a virtual asset service provider (VASP) license in Lithuania and is applying for a Bermuda license. GRVT aims to expand to the Middle East and Europe to obtain licenses. Currently, GRVT has 16 employees in Singapore, Hong Kong, the UK, and Lithuania, and the company plans to expand its team by recruiting sales, marketing, compliance, and engineering departments.

Social/Creative Economy

There were a total of 2 financing rounds in the social/creator economy sector, with a total amount exceeding 7.3 million US dollars, accounting for 4.63% of the total financing amount last week.

Afterparty

On September 21st, according to Businesswire, Web3 creator community Afterparty completed a $5 million financing round, led by Blockchange Ventures, with participation from Acrew Capital, Act One Ventures, Tamarack Global, Wilson Sonsini, and Vinny Lingham. The funds raised will be used for product development and business expansion.

Afterpatry is using Web3 technology to create a decentralized platform that builds tools and communities for creators and their biggest supporters to leverage the tangible, real value of NFTs. Afterparty was founded and is managed by entrepreneurs who are also centered on technology and creators, and has expanded its first token-gated event platform from the virtual world to IRL experiences to bring together a dynamic community.

Afterparty CEO David Fields said in an interview with GamesBeat: "We have always been committed to expanding the platform's scale. We have just launched the second version of the event experience, which provides a truly enhanced mobile experience. We are very focused on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram creators. This is a group that is underserved and under-monetized. Many creators earn almost zero advertising revenue from their platforms."

Orb

On September 21st, Orb, a Web3 social application based on Lens Protocol, completed a $2.3 million financing round. The round was participated by ArkStream Capital, Superscrypt, Founders, Inc., Foresight Ventures, Aave Companies, Aave Companies, Lens Protocol founder Stani Kulechov, and Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal. Orb co-founder Kimmo Siren stated that there was no major investor in this round of financing and added that it was an equity financing round that began in March and ended in May. He declined to comment on the valuation. Orb is a community-centered Web3 social application with chat and community functions. The chat function allows users to contact and communicate with friends, while the community function allows users to join groups of like-minded people.

Since the initial stage of launching the community function, Orb has received more than 400 requests to create new communities. The new communities have more than 5,000 users, outputted more than 15,000 pieces of content, and generated more than 150,000 responses and interactions. Despite being in the early stages, Orb continues to join communities, develop functions, and bring web3 social networking to events such as ETHDenver and ETHTokyo. Notable communities include Refraction (an artist-owned community) and Zerion DNA (a web3 community tailored for Zerion wallet users).

Infrastructure

There were a total of 7 financing deals in the infrastructure sector, with a total amount of over 54.45 million US dollars, accounting for 34.56% of the total financing amount last week.

Bastion

On September 18th, according to Bloomberg, the encryption startup Bastion completed a $25 million seed round of financing, led by a16z crypto, with participation from Laser Digital Ventures under Nomura Group, Robot Ventures, Not Boring Capital, and others. Riyaz Faizullabhoy, co-founder of Bastion, commented, "Many of the products and services we use daily can be fundamentally improved through blockchain technology." Bastion claims to have the ability to "facilitate cost-effective transactions at Web2 speeds while opening up new growth paths."

Bastion is an interpretation of the interactive future supported by web3 infrastructure. It seamlessly integrates compatible Web3 infrastructure into enterprise technology, reducing the complexity of user on-chain operations, while providing off-chain value for enterprises, giving them a web2 user experience. Bastion aims to be the ultimate orchestration layer for traditional enterprise construction in web3, achieving results greater than the sum of its parts by coordinating multiple components, eliminating the need for enterprises to build multiple solutions internally.

Bastion has proposed a hosted wallet API that supports secure hardware-backed private key storage and can be accessed through a powerful and easy-to-use API. This API abstracts away the complex interactions that may need to take place on the chain for multiple transactions, with the aim of improving the complexity of encrypted wallets. In addition to improving the complexity of encrypted wallets, Bastion also proposes two solutions, intelligent transaction routing and customer analysis, to address the isolation of payment platforms and insufficient interaction between brands and customers. These solutions are based on Bastion's proprietary web3 infrastructure services and can distinguish it from other web3 infrastructure providers.

Freatic

On September 20th, according to The Block, decentralized information market protocol Freatic completed a $3.6 million seed round of financing. The round was led by a16z Crypto, with participation from Anagram, Archetype, Not3Lau Capital, Robot Ventures, and Arweave. Angel investors include Stefano Bernardi, Meltem Demirors, Stephane Gosselin, Jutta Steiner, and MacLane Wilkison.

Freatic claims to be committed to using decentralized, game theory, and modern cryptography methods to overcome the limitations of the information market and build a decentralized information market. The Freatic team consists of smart contract developers, engineers, and researchers in game theory and cryptography. They have developed a systematic approach to designing sustainable and incentive-compatible decentralized information flow mechanisms. The team's current products include Alpha Factory and Capture The Alpha.

Alpha Factory is hosted on Polygon and is a new type of DAO that focuses on collecting individuals' unique perspectives on cryptocurrency. It uses a decentralized labor income structure, where contributors can plan to deliver crypto projects to subscribers. By using a peer-to-peer consensus mechanism to provide incentives, users are encouraged to actively share relevant and accurate information. Capture The Alpha is currently being built on Arbitrum, and the team has introduced a competitive on-chain reputation system that allows alpha hunters to establish their reputation in finding early crypto projects on Twitter accounts. The information shared by users on Capture The Alpha will be processed through a set of encrypted thresholds and will not be leaked before the specified duration, allowing alpha hunters to prove how early they discovered valuable information.

BeWater

On September 21st, BeWater, a decentralized hackathon platform and global open source developer organization, announced that it has completed a $1 million angel round of financing. The round was led by ABCDE and OKX Ventures, with follow-on investments from ScalingX, Galaxy Mercury Asia, Contentos, and individual investor Blake Gao. BeWater.xyz provides standardized event services, including hackathons, and can launch a hackathon in just 10 minutes without permission. In the three months since its launch, BeWater.xyz has already partnered with large ecosystems such as zkSync, Celestia, Polyhedra, Taiko, Aleo, Solana, NEO, and Sei to hold more than 20 hackathons with a prize pool of over $2 million. As of now, BeWater.xyz has gathered more than 22,000 Github-certified developers and over 3,000 Figma-certified designers from over 50 countries around the world. It has integrated an open source project code scanning engine, which can generate developer profiles by simply entering a developer's Github account. It has scanned hundreds of thousands of lines of code and created profiles for over 20,000 developers, with over 1 million developer profile tags.

Infrastructure's remaining financing includes:

On September 21st, Essential, a intent-focused cryptocurrency infrastructure company, completed a $5.15 million seed round of financing. Maven11 led the investment, with participation from Robot Ventures, Karatage, Batuhan Dasgin, Skip, James Prestwich, Brandon Curtis, Eclipse founder Neel Somani, and others. It is reported that Essential aims to reshape the cryptocurrency trading supply chain to reduce the value extraction of "rent-seeking intermediaries" and benefit users.

Original Link

On September 19th, Jiritsu, a blockchain company focused on verifiable computation, announced that it had raised a total of $10.2 million in two rounds of funding, led by gumi Cryptos Capital, with participation from Susquehanna Private Equity Investments, LLLP, Republic Capital, and others. The company stated that it was founded in 2020 and has developed technologies such as Unlimited Verifiable Computation (UVC), which aims to provide an easy-to-program method that can be applied to any workflow and generate workflow proofs. Jiritsu also launched its asset tokenization platform, Tomei RWA, today. The company stated that the Tomei platform uses zero-knowledge authentication to achieve secure and compliant asset logging, while also providing fine-grained, licensed data access.

Original article link

On September 18th, blockchain data visualization company Bubblemaps completed a $3.2 million seed round of financing. The round was led by INCE Capital, with participation from Stake Capital, Momentum 6, Lbank, V3ntures, Nicolas Bacca of Ledger, Dyma Budorin of Hacken, and French entrepreneur Owen 'Hasheur' Simonin. Bubblemaps plans to use the funds to expand its team and accelerate growth, particularly by hiring more developers and strengthening the company's marketing efforts on social media platforms. (The Block)

Original article link

On September 21st, according to CoinDesk, the cryptocurrency data analysis platform CoinScan completed a $6.3 million financing round with participation from Shalom Meckenzie, the largest individual shareholder of DraftKings (DKNG), Mor Weizer, CEO of Playtech (PTEC), and Tectona. It is reported that CoinScan aims to provide data that helps cryptocurrency users reduce losses caused by vulnerabilities, hacking attacks, and fraud.

Original article link

Digital Asset Management/Payment

In the field of digital asset management/payment, a total of 2 financings were completed with a total amount exceeding 36 million US dollars, accounting for 22.85% of the total financing amount last week.

Mesh

On September 22nd, according to TechCrunch, Mesh (formerly known as Front Finance), a startup company that provides encrypted transfer and payment services, completed a $22 million Series A financing round. Money Forward led the investment, with other investors including Galaxy, Samsung Next, Streamlined Ventures, SNR.VC, Hike VC, Heitner Group, Valon Capital, Florida Funders, Altair Capital, Network VC, and several angel investors. Mesh will use the newly raised funds to further develop its deposit, payment, and expenditure tools, and support the launch and operation of its products. So far, Mesh has raised a total of $32 million in funding. Mesh was a participant in the Startup Battlefield 200 competition at TC Disrupt 2023, founded by Bam Azizi and Adam Israel in 2020. Prior to founding Mesh, Azizi founded NoPassword, a network security and identity company that was acquired by LogMeIn in 2019. Adam Israel previously served as Managing Director at HSBC.

数字资管/支付其余融资包括：

translates to

Digital Asset Management/Payment and Other Financing:

in English.

On September 20th, according to PR Newswire, Fuze, a digital asset startup in the Middle East, announced the completion of a $14 million seed round of financing, led by Abu Dhabi venture capital firm Further Ventures and participated by Liberty City Ventures. It is reported that Fuze was founded in December 2022, and its white-label solution handles the complexity and regulatory costs of enterprise blockchain, enabling organizations to easily provide digital assets such as stablecoins, cryptocurrencies, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and tokenized assets.

Original Link

Other Financing

Other financing totaled 1 transaction, with a total amount of 11.5 million US dollars, accounting for 7.3% of last week's total financing. Including:

On September 19th, Briya, a blockchain medical data exchange platform, announced the completion of a $11.5 million Series A funding round. Team8 led the investment, with participation from Insight Partners, Amiti Ventures, Innocare Health Investments, and George Kaiser Family Foundation. Briya's total funding has reached $17 million. Briya's scalable blockchain-driven system standardizes all forms of electronic health records, enabling life science organizations to simplify access and exchange of real-time anonymous medical data. Briya is one of the 10 startups selected for the 2022 Intel Ignite accelerator program and participated in the Health Engine accelerator at the University of California, Berkeley.

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