These altcoins are in the limelight of investors. Behind the scenes, however, blockchain startups continue to evolve.
Foundation completes $22 million fundraising
In January, Polygon Capital led a $22 million funding round for =nil; It is the foundation, an Ethereum development company focused on zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs. Capital increase value = nil; It was set up for $220 million and will be used to help the firm expand the market for ZK proofs.
The company’s Proof Market is a data availability protocol that enables layer-1 and layer-2 blockchains to generate ZK proofs on demand without relying on centralized intermediaries. According to =nil, Proof Market was developed to provide secure data transfer between Ethereum and common protocols.
Ethereum infrastructure provider Blocknative raises $15 million
Web3 infrastructure company Blocknative has raised $15 million to support its continued growth in Ethereum and the public blockchain market. Providing real-time transaction monitoring that allows validators to optimize staking rewards, the company is positioning itself as a block generator for post-Merge Ethereum.
#Web3 took center stage in 2022, with 616 individual deals, by far the most.#CeFi, the least popular sector, only closed 201 deals.
Despite this, CeFi received the same amount of VC funding as Web3, with roughly three times the investment per deal! 🤯https://t.co/fYTCURUvaX pic.twitter.com/WfNsrsVz1A
— Cointelegraph Research (@CointelegraphCS) January 27, 2023
The funding round included several venture firms, including Blockchain Capital, Foundry Group, Fenbushi Capital, Hack VC and IOSG Ventures. Blocknative has raised $34 million in cumulative funding to date.
These altcoins have received high investment
Web3 infrastructure platform Nillion has completed a $20 million strategic funding round as part of its efforts to promote decentralization without blockchain technology. More than 150 investors participated in the tour, including Big Brain Holdings, Chapter One, GSR, Hashkey and SALT Fund.
Nillion’s founding team includes former executives of Uber, Hedera Hashgraph and Indiegogo. The company has also previously hired executives from Coinbase and Nike. While Nillion promotes decentralization without blockchains, its technology offers a multi-chain wallet compatible with existing blockchains.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) lending marketplace Archimedes launched in February with a $4.9 million startup round backed by Hack VC, Uncorrelation Venture, Psalion, Truffle Ventures, and others. Archimedes’ market uses NFTs to facilitate borrowing and lending. Also, leveragers receive an NFT representing a yielding stablecoin. The platform provides leverage up to 10 times the main collateral amount.
Ethos Wallet gets startup support
Altcoins continue to receive investment. Sui Blockchain’s Ethos Wallet closed a $4.2 million seed round in January led by Boldstart Ventures and gumi Cryptos Capital. Ethos is a digital wallet that allows users to store their crypto and NFT using a Chrome extension.
The #crypto Venture Capital database available on the #ResearchTerminal has not only the amounts and dates of each individual deal but also detailed data about investment funds such as their #AUM, founders, and portfolios: https://t.co/78pvKoz2rg
Updated weekly! @Cointelegraph pic.twitter.com/t4mPqNurox
— Cointelegraph Research (@CointelegraphCS) June 6, 2022
The wallet also provides access to decentralized applications on the Sui blockchain established by Mysten Labs. In 2022, Mysten Labs raised $300 million to support Sui with backers including Coinbase Ventures, Jump Crypto, Andreessen Horowitz, and the now-defunct FTX Ventures.
VitaDAO, its investment and Hyper Oracle funding round
The market for decentralized autonomous organizations or DAOs seems to be growing amid new use cases for the new entity structure. In January, longevity science research organization VitaDAO raised $4.1 million from contributors such as Pfizer Ventures, Shine Capital, L1 Digital, and Web3-natives Beaker DAO and Spaceship DAO.
VitaDAO said the capital increase will fund longevity research and launch a new biotechnology initiative later this quarter. Funds will also be used to support the commercialization and licensing of VitaDAO’s IP-NFT assets, NFTs representing intellectual property and patents for therapeutic research projects.
Hyper Oracle, another ZK-focused company, has raised $3 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Sequoia China and Dao5. The company developed blockchain indexing and automation protocols to integrate ZK-resistant systems. According to Hyper Oracle, the middleware will run faster and more securely. Hyper Oracle will use the funding to expand its research and development and hire additional staff.
