Institutional Briefing: Web3 startup Magic raises $52m, Taiko Labs $22m

The cryptocurrency industry is drawing an increasing number of institutional players. This is reflected in both new investments in infrastructure and the growing attention firms are giving to Bitcoin as an asset class. The most important events of the past weeks are in ForkLog’s overview.

Web3 startup Magic raises $52m in round led by PayPal Ventures

The venture arm of the payments giant PayPal led the funding round of Magic’s $52m. The company has developed software that helps corporations interact with customers in the Web3-segment.

Magic is a provider of a multi-platform WaaS.

The startup’s solution is designed to facilitate the storage of digital assets in a non-custodial wallet. Access to the latter can be configured via email address, SMS or social-media accounts.

Corporations can use the service to run loyalty and membership programs, issue NFTs, reward employees, and sell tickets. Among Magic’s clients are Macy’s department-store chain and toy maker Mattel.

In a strategic investment round Magic also drew participation from Cherubic, Synchrony, KX, Northzone and Volt Capital. The amount raised by the startup exceeded $80m.

Taiko Labs raises $22m to build a Type 1 zkEVM

The Ethereum-scale-focused startup Taiko Labs closed two funding rounds for a total of $22m.

The first $10m round in Q3 2022 was led by Sequoia China, and the recent Series A round of $12m was led by Generative Ventures.

Other investors include OSG Ventures, GSR and GGV Capital, as well as angel investors Patricio Worthhalter from POAP, Tim Beiko of the Ethereum Foundation and Anthony Sassano.

Taiko is building a scaling solution for Ethereum, “as close as possible to the network’s design and ethos.” The company described the development as an Ethereum Virtual Machine with zero-knowledge disclosure of Type 1 (zkEVM Type 1).

Earlier the project team launched the third version of its testnet, which they described as “the next step on the path to a decentralized equivalent of Ethereum zkEVM.”

According to Taiko cofounder Daniel Wang, the funding will support a successful mainnet launch. He also noted that the startup will need more capital to create an investment fund and attract developers to the ecosystem.

Crypto life-insurance startup Meanwhile raises $19m with Sam Altman involved

Meanwhile, a cryptocurrency life-insurance startup, announced the closing of two seed rounds totaling $19m.

The first was led by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and the second by Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI-focused fund.

According to the press release, Meanwhile is the “sole” insurer offering products fully denominated in cryptocurrency.

The funding will enable the company to obtain a Bermuda regulator license, expand its team, and launch its first service — life insurance backed by the first cryptocurrency.

“Bitcoin is on a path to becoming a global store of value and a functional currency. … If we combine it with artificial intelligence, we see potential for creating a life-insurance company with a full stack whose aim is to reach more than a billion people around the world,” said Meanwhile’s CEO Zak Townsend.

Using cutting-edge blockchain and AI technologies, the company plans to build a “comprehensive insurance system that reduces manual work and promotes transparency.”

After the initial launch Meanwhile will continue to work on expanding its product lineup, adding new cryptocurrencies and options.

Web3 platform Lens raises $15m

The Lens Protocol project, owned by the lending DeFi protocol Aave, closed a funding round of $15m led by IDEO CoLab Ventures.

Among other investors: General Catalyst, Blockchain Capital and Palm Tree, as well as Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams, OpenSea CEO Alex Atallah, entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan and Polygon cofounder Sandeep Nailwal.

Lens Protocol is a composable, decentralized social graph that uses smart contracts on the Polygon blockchain.

Users can build apps, interact, and subscribe to updates from others. Each account is a non-fungible token that governs the profile. NFTs contain “the history of all posts, mirrors, comments and other content.”

The project team will deploy the funds to expand its ecosystem.

NFT marketplace Tabi raises $10m

The NFT marketplace non-fungible tokens Tabi, built in the BNB Chain ecosystem, raised $10m.

Investors include Animoca Brands, Binance Labs, Draper Dragon, Hashkey Capital, Infinity Crypto Ventures and Youbi Capital, as well as angel investors Bo Fan of Dragonfly Capital, Riyad AD from Saudi Arabia and Suji Yan of Mask Network.

According to the developers, the funds will go toward expanding the Tabi ecosystem and creating a new network identity protocol.

In addition to standard NFT features, the marketplace features an “experience points” system that converts user actions into bonus points. Tabi also features a gaming platform that aggregates all entertainment components of the marketplace.

Founder Xavier Li said he plans to launch an “incubation NFT fund” designed to spur developers to grow their products and brands on the BNB Chain.

Haun Ventures leads Argus Labs seed round of $10m

The Argus Labs startup, developing an SDK for creating functionally interoperable blockchain games, closed a seed round of funding for $10m. It was led by Haun Ventures, the venture arm of former Andreessen Horowitz partner Katie Haun.

The company was supported by tech and gaming angels, including Elad Gil, Balaji Srinivasan and Siqi Chen, Kevin Aluvi, Sanny Agarwal, Kalvin Liu and Scott Moore. Financing also provided by Robot Ventures, Anagram and Dispersion Capital.

With the World Engine SDK, developers can build and tailor interoperable game worlds.

“Online games were born on the internet, but they are isolated, cut off from the enormous potential of a connected universe,” said Scott Sunarto, the startup’s founder.

The entrepreneur is known as the creator of “the first MMORTS game Dark Forws based on zk-SNARK technology.” The difficulties arising from constraints inherent to current blockchain architecture spurred him to build World Engine.

Sunarto envisions the SDK as a “connected L2 layer for blockchains in the form of open-source sharded networks that will serve as the foundation for the internet of games.” Such a structure enables distributing load across high-performance gaming segments.

Such a shard easily integrates with major engines and provides the features and performance expected from a traditional game server.

Informal Systems attracts $5.3m to Cosmos core development team

The Informal Systems attracted $5.3m to fund its work as the core development team in the Cosmos ecosystem.

The funding round was led by CMCC Global with support from Nascent, Maven11 and angels from Celestia and EigenLayer. The funds were issued in the form of convertible notes.

“This funding marks an important step for Informal, enabling us to continue expanding the ecosystem, raising the standards of software, assets and organizations,” said Ethan Buchman, CEO of Informal Systems.

Part of the funds will go toward supporting Informal Security, the project’s security-auditing arm, helping projects find bugs and improve protocol code.