Paul here, reporting to you during the week of July 19th. Great News — Investors have delivered some BOP to Defi and Blockchain projects this week with another billion going to work in the space. This time its DriveWealth which pulled in the lion share ($400 Million) to help fuel the boom in retail stock trading. In stride, LMAX Group headed up by David Mercer, pulled in $300 Million to become the preeminent player in global capital markets as well as the market leader of FX and cryptocurrency trading.
Here is a summation of this week’s major news:
Low Tier ($12.5MM)
Harmony announced a $1MM hackathon aimed at merging traditional finance and DeFi.
iM Intelligent Mining raised $2.5MM for eco-friendly Crypto mining
Bitcoin interoperability platform Interlay raised $3MM in seed funding
1inch Foundation launched $3MM grants program for DeFi developers
FLURRY Finance raised $3MM from iconic VCs.
Mid Tier ($141MM)
Australian-based virtual horse racing platform (Virtually Human Studio) raised $20MM in Series A funding from The Chernin Group, Andreessen Horowitz, and others
Crypto Venture Studio Thesis raised $21MM and plans to launch a new wallet
Blockchain interoperability protocol Axelar raised $25MM in Series A funding
Crypto Wallet Password Manager (Magic) raised $27MM from Alexis Ohanian, Balaji Srinivasan, and more.
SoftBank to put $75MM into Peter Thiel-backed Crypto exchange Bullish
High Tier ($1.35B)
Despite slowing NFT activity, OpenSea became the next Crypto unicorn with $100MM round
Polygon sets Up $100MM fund for NFT gaming projects
TaxBit achieves unicorn status through latest $100MM funding round
Terraform Labs gets $150MM investments from major Crypto players
Aussie Bitcoin miner (Iris Energy) to reportedly raise $200MM ahead of Nasdaq listing
Financial services investor J.C. Flowers & Co. takes a $300MM stake in institutional-focused LMAX Group.
DriveWealth set to raise up to $400MM from SoftBank and Insight Partners
Crypto companies raked in record-breaking $4.4B in Q2 alone. Every week, it’s nearly $1B or more that’s being directed to building platforms that support the movement of money, games, taxes, etc. Fast forward a decade and the financial landscape will be drastically different than it is today.
Let’s keep the party going by reading, watching, and listening to what’s happening in the investment space. Until next time, have a great weekend!
