Financing Weekly | 19 public financing events, focusing on Tether's Blockchain Stable completing $28 million in seed round financing, led by Bitfinex and Hack VC.

Highlights of this issue

According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 19 investment and financing events in the global blockchain sector last week (July 28 - August 3); the total amount of funds exceeded 219 million USD; in addition, the total financing amount of crypto asset reserves by listed companies exceeded 1.775 billion USD, as summarized below:

• DeFi announced 4 investment and financing events, among which the RWAiFi project GAIB completed a financing of 10 million USD, led by Amber Group;
• Web3 games track announced 1 investment event, the Web3 role-playing game Aria (ARIA) completed a $5 million financing, with participation from Folius Ventures;
• Web3+AI track has announced 4 financing events, among which the AI project Billions has completed a $30 million financing round, participated by Polychain, Coinbase Ventures, and others;
• Infrastructure & Tools sector announced 6 investment and financing events, including the completion of a $28 million seed round financing for the blockchain Stable focused on Tether, led by Bitfinex and Hack VC;
• Decentralized Finance sector announced 4 funding events, among which YuanCoin Technology completed a $40 million Series A2 funding round, led by ZhongAn International and others;
• Other aspects have 7 listed companies completing financing to establish a crypto treasury, among which CEA Industries and 10X Capital raised $500 million in a private placement with the support of YZi Labs to establish a BNB treasury.

DeFi

RWAiFi project GAIB completes $10 million financing, led by Amber Group

The RWAiFi project GAIB has completed a $10 million financing round led by Amber Group. The funds will be used for the tokenization of platform GPU assets to promote the development of the on-chain AI economy. By 2025, GAIB has attracted $28 million in deposits and has reached partnerships with DeFi protocols Morpho and Pendle. The platform supports entering the AI economy through the synthesis of USD using AID and earning rewards by staking AID (sAID). Previously, it was reported that GAIB completed a $5 million Pre-Seed financing round led by Hack VC.

TON Ecosystem STON.fi completes $9.5 million Series A funding, led by Ribbit Capital and CoinFund

The leading decentralized exchange STON.fi on the TON blockchain has completed a $9.5 million Series A funding round, led by Ribbit Capital and CoinFund. The funds will be used to develop concentrated liquidity pools, cross-chain capabilities, and community governance, promoting bridge-less cross-chain swaps and the expansion of the DeFi ecosystem. Since its launch in 2022, STON.fi has accumulated a trading volume of over $6 billion.

Cryptocurrency trading platform Pear Protocol completes $4.1 million in strategic financing

The cryptocurrency trading platform Pear Protocol has announced the completion of a $4.1 million strategic financing round, led by Castle Island Ventures, with participation from institutions such as Compound VC, Florin Digital, and Sigil Fund. The financing will be used to expand the suite of institutional-grade products, including the development of vaults and API interfaces on HyperEVM, as well as the relaunch of more liquid spot tokens on the Hyperliquid spot order book. The platform has completed native integration with the Hyperliquid perpetual contract order book, allowing users to execute pair trades with one click, and supports advanced features such as ratio-based take-profit and stop-loss strategies, and TWAP execution.

AI-driven crypto trading platform Kuvi.ai completes $700,000 seed round financing, led by Moon Pursuit Capital

The AI-driven cryptocurrency trading platform Kuvi.ai announced the completion of a $700,000 seed round of financing, led by Moon Pursuit Capital, with participation from Transform Ventures investor Michael Terpin and Web3 investor Dennis Liu, achieving a valuation of $30 million. The company aims to use the new funds to support its trading platform based on message input patterns, simplifying the cryptocurrency trading interface in a conversational manner.

Web3 games

Web3 Role-playing Game Aria Completes $5 Million Financing

Web3 role-playing game Aria (ARIA) announced that it successfully raised $5 million in its latest funding round. This round was led by Folius Ventures, The Spartan Group, and Beam FDN, with follow-on investments from Animoca Brands, Galaxy, and others.

AI

AI project Billions completes $30 million funding, with participation from Polychain, Coinbase Ventures, and others

AI project Billions announces the completion of a $30 million funding round, aimed at building the first universal network for humans and AI. This funding has the support of pioneers in the crypto and AI infrastructure fields, including Polychain, Coinbase Ventures, Polygon, LibertyCity Ventures, and BITKRAFT Ventures. Billions advocates for solving internet trust issues through verifiable identities, helping users prove authenticity without exposing private data, and providing a safer environment for interactions between humans and AI. This funding round will be used to build the first universal human-AI interaction network, based on zero-knowledge proof technology, aimed at providing scalable and secure identity verification mechanisms to promote trustworthy interactions between humans and artificial intelligence.

Decentralized AI infrastructure Manifold completes $10.5 million Series A financing, led by OSS Capital

Decentralized AI infrastructure Manifold has announced that it has completed a $10.5 million Series A funding round to accelerate the development of its decentralized AI cloud platform Targon. This round of financing was led by OSS Capital, with participation from renowned investors including Digital Currency Group, Tobias Lütke, Ram Shriram, Zachary Smith, Jacob Steeves, Ala Shaabana, and Logan Kilpatrick.

ARO Network Secures $2.1 Million Funding to Promote Decentralized Edge Cloud Development

ARO Network has recently completed a $2.1 million seed pre-financing round, aimed at accelerating the construction of its decentralized edge cloud platform designed for peer-to-peer content delivery and artificial intelligence computing. This round of financing was led by NoLimit Holdings and Dispersion Capital, with participation from Escape Velocity, Maelstrom, and several strategic angel investors. ARO Network is committed to providing services to global users with low latency and low cost by transforming idle internet bandwidth and computing power into a scalable P2P content distribution network, and is actively promoting integration with ecosystems such as EigenLayer, Base, and IoTex.

AI agent Billy Bets based on Virtuals completes $1 million financing

AI agent Billy Bets based on Virtuals has recently completed a $1 million financing round, with investors including Coinbase Ventures, Virtuals Ventures, and Contango Digital Assets.

OpenAI completes $8.3 billion in financing, reaching a valuation of $300 billion

According to a report by Jinshi, The New York Times, OpenAI has raised $8.3 billion, with a valuation of $300 billion. OpenAI plans to secure $40 billion in funding by 2025.

**（**Not included in this financing weekly report statistics）

Infrastructure & Tools

Focus on Tether’s blockchain Stable completes $28 million seed funding, led by Bitfinex and Hack VC

The new blockchain project Stable, built around Tether’s USDT, has announced the completion of a $28 million seed round financing, led by Bitfinex and Hack VC, with other supporters including Franklin Templeton, Castle Island Ventures, and KuCoin Ventures, as well as angel investors such as Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and Braintree founder Bryan Johnson. The Stable blockchain aims to use USDT as the base gas token to build a fast, low-cost stable payment network. Its roadmap is divided into three phases: the first phase aims to achieve USDT payment for gas fees and sub-second block confirmation; the second phase provides block space assurance for enterprise-level payments; the third phase focuses on developer tools and performance upgrades.

Blockchain startup Subzero Labs raises $20 million in seed funding, led by Pantera Capital

Blockchain startup Subzero Labs has completed a $20 million seed round financing, led by Pantera Capital, with follow-on investments from Variant, Coinbase Ventures, and Susquehanna’s crypto division. The company is developing the Rialo blockchain for real-world applications, aiming to break through the current limitations of crypto technology which mainly serves financial speculation. Co-founder Ade Adepoju previously worked as an engineer at Mysten Labs (involved in the development of the Sui blockchain). Rialo aims to provide a native solution for integrating external data (such as FICO credit scores) on-chain for non-crypto developers, without relying on oracles. The team currently has 20 members, and the financing includes equity and token subscription rights, with specific valuation undisclosed.

Falcon Finance receives a $10 million strategic investment from World Liberty Financial

Falcon announced on Wednesday that the Trump-related cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial has made a strategic investment of $10 million in the digital token infrastructure platform Falcon Finance. This funding will accelerate its operations to allow for “seamless conversion” between its stablecoin and another stablecoin supported by World Liberty. It is reported that the circulation of the stablecoin Falcon USD or USDf reached $1 billion on Tuesday.

London payment company Due completes $7.3 million seed round financing and launches global stablecoin payment API

The London-based borderless payment startup Due has announced the completion of a $7.3 million seed funding round and the official launch of its global stablecoin payment API. The round was led by Speedinvest, with participation from several well-known investment firms including Semantic, Fabric Ventures, Strobe Ventures, and Polymorphic Capital. The new funding will be used to expand the API platform, helping businesses achieve faster, lower-cost, and more inclusive cross-border payments.

The encryption technology startup TACEO has completed a $5.5 million seed round of financing, with a16z CSX participating

Austrian crypto technology startup TACEO has completed a $5.5 million seed round financing, led by Archetype VC, with participation from a16z CSX, Cyber.Fund, a_capital, and Polymorphic Capital. The new funds will be used to enhance infrastructure performance and develop developer tools, focusing on expanding privacy-compliant applications in the finance, AI, and stablecoin sectors. The company’s core technology, “Private Shared State,” enables collaborative computing on encrypted data among multiple parties and has successfully supported biometric verification for 14 million users in the World ID project under Sam Altman. Its technology integrates multi-party computation (MPC) and coSNARKs zero-knowledge proofs to verify computation accuracy without exposing the original data.

Bitcoin native dApp infrastructure Midl completes $2.4 million seed round financing

Bitcoin native dApp infrastructure Midl announced the completion of a $2.4 million seed round financing, led by Draper Associates, with participation from Draper Dragon. The project aims to build a native smart contract execution environment on the Bitcoin mainnet, allowing decentralized applications to run without relying on sidechains or cross-chain bridges. Midl is currently in the testnet phase, with the mainnet expected to launch soon. Several early DeFi protocols have already gone live on the testnet, and over 20 projects are in various stages of deployment.

Other

Cryptocurrency Asset Reserves: (Not included in this financing weekly report statistics)

Mill City Ventures announces $500 million equity financing agreement to advance SUI financial strategy

Non-bank lending institutions and financial company Mill City Ventures III, Ltd. (Nasdaq: MCVT) announced today that it has signed an equity line agreement with AGP/Alliance Global Partners (as investor), allowing Mill City to sell up to $500 million of its common stock at its discretion, subject to certain restrictions and closing conditions. Proceeds from the equity line (excluding commitment fees) will be used to advance the company’s SUI financial strategy.

Public company Upexi reaches $500 million equity financing agreement to support its Solana reserve strategy

Upexi, a Nasdaq-listed company (Nasdaq Code: UPXI), has signed an equity financing facility agreement with A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners. According to this agreement, subject to certain restrictions and conditions, Upexi can decide to sell up to $500 million of common stock. The company stated that it will use the proceeds from the equity financing facility for general corporate purposes and to advance its Solana asset reserve strategy. The equity financing facility structure allows Upexi to choose when to enter the capital markets without the need for immediate financing. Such agreements typically allow companies to sell stock over a period of time based on market conditions and funding needs.

CEA Industries and 10X Capital raise $500 million in private placement supported by YZi Labs to establish BNB treasury

CEA Industries and 10X Capital announced a $500 million private placement financing supported by YZi Labs to establish a BNB treasury. The two institutions will expand the PIPE issuance scale, with over 140 subscribers participating in this issuance. In addition to YZi Labs, other institutions include Pantera Capital, Arche Capital, GSR, Borderless, Arrington Capital, Blockchain.com, Hypersphere Capital, and Kenetic.

Fundamental Global completes a $200 million private placement and launches ETH reserve plan

Fundamental Global announced the completion of a $200 million private placement financing, which will be used to purchase ETH as the primary treasury reserve asset and to initiate the Ethereum treasury strategy. The company will be renamed FG Nexus Inc., with a new stock code expected to be activated on August 1. Strategic investors include Galaxy Digital, Kraken, DCG, among others, with Galaxy assisting in managing the Ethereum treasury. The company stated it will promote the application of Ethereum in the global financial system while providing staking rewards and opportunities for real asset tokenization.

Public company Antelope Enterprise signs a $50 million financing agreement to initiate a Bitcoin purchasing plan

The NASDAQ-listed company Antelope Enterprise announced that it has signed a securities purchase agreement with Streeterville Capital, aiming to raise $50 million, which will be specifically used to purchase Bitcoin. Streeterville Capital will provide funding to the company in installments over a maximum period of 24 months, and AEHL will gradually acquire Bitcoin using these funds based on market conditions.

The Smarter Web Company completes £19.5 million financing, continuing to advance its Bitcoin treasury strategy

The London-listed technology company The Smarter Web Company announced the completion of the issuance of 6.058 million new ordinary shares in the current subscription round, raising a total of £19.68 million, with an average issuance price of £3.25 per share. The funds are expected to be received early this week. The company plans to update the subscription progress every two weeks and intends to initiate a new subscription agreement after completing a total of 14 million shares in this round. Since 2023, the company has adopted a Bitcoin treasury policy and currently holds some reserve assets in Bitcoin, viewing it as a long-term store of value and using it to enhance shareholder returns.

Vaultz Capital completes £4.3 million funding and intensifies Bitcoin strategy

The digital asset operation company Vaultz Capital, listed in the UK, successfully raised £4.3 million through a targeted issuance, with Aura Digital subscribing for £2.6 million. The company is currently conducting a new round of placement, aiming for a total financing of approximately £6 million. The company is accelerating its strategy for expanding Bitcoin reserves and infrastructure, appointing Erik Benz as CEO, and establishing a brand new Bitcoin advisory committee.

centralized finance

Yuan Coin Technology completes $40 million Series A2 financing, led by ZhongAn International and others

Hong Kong fintech group RD Technologies has announced the successful completion of nearly $40 million in Series A2 financing. This round of financing was led by ZA Global, China Harbour, Bright Venture, and Hivemind Capital, with participation from Sequoia China, Eternal Digital, Junshi Capital, and Guotai Junan International Private Equity Fund. RD Technologies stated that this financing will accelerate the construction of its regulated stablecoin infrastructure and actively cooperate with Hong Kong’s upcoming stablecoin licensing system. Meanwhile, ZA Bank has signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with RD Technologies to jointly explore the compliant application of stablecoins in financial services.

Standard Chartered’s crypto trading platform Zodia Markets secures $18.25 million in funding

Standard Chartered Bank’s cryptocurrency trading platform Zodia Markets has completed a $18.25 million financing round, led by New York venture capital firm Pharsalus Capital, with participation from Circle Ventures, Token Bay Capital, XVC Tech, and others. After this round of financing, Standard Chartered Bank’s ownership stake decreased from 84% to 60%. Established in 2021, Zodia Markets offers cryptocurrency over-the-counter brokerage services. The new funds will be used to expand into East Asia, Latin America, and the U.S. markets, as well as to grow its stablecoin business. The company currently has a team of about 50 people and emphasizes a profit-first strategy, avoiding cost-ineffective expansion.

Xinglu Technology completes nearly $10 million Series A funding, with participation from Solana Foundation and others

Fosun’s digital wealth management platform, Fosun Wealth International Holdings Limited, and its self-incubated Xinglu Financial Technology Holdings Limited, announced that Xinglu Technology has completed nearly ten million dollars in Series A financing, with investors including Solana Foundation and other Web3 industry organizations as well as wealth management companies. It is reported that Fosun Wealth International Holdings under Fosun International has recently registered trademarks in Hong Kong, including “Fosun International Crypto”, “Fosun Wealth RWA”, and “Xing Coin”, indicating that Fosun International will strengthen its involvement in the cryptocurrency and virtual asset industry.

Dutch crypto derivatives exchange D2X completes 4.3 million euros in strategic financing, with participation from Circle Ventures and others

The Dutch crypto derivatives exchange D2X has completed a strategic financing round of 4.3 million euros (approximately 5 million USD), with investors including Circle Ventures, CMT Digital, Canton Ventures, Point72 Ventures, Tioga Capital, GSR, and Fortino Capital. According to reports, D2X holds a Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) license under the EU MiFID II framework, and it recently launched Bitcoin and Ethereum futures contracts priced in USD, with plans to introduce related options products.