Institutional Bulletin: Blockaid Raises $33 Million, SynFutures $22 Million

The cryptocurrency industry is drawing an ever-growing number of institutional players. This is evidenced by new investments in infrastructure and the increasingly close attention that companies pay to Bitcoin as an asset class. The most important events of the past weeks are in ForkLog’s review.

MetaMask security partner raises $33 million

Blockaid closed a Series A round of $33 million with participation from Ribbit Capital and Varian. MetaMask’s security partner and OpenSea will continue to scale the technology with a focus on preventing malicious transactions.

The funds were also provided by Sequoia Capital, Cyberstarts and Greylock Partners.

The team said it has exited stealth mode. It is compatible with any blockchain.

In addition to MetaMask and OpenSea, the toolkit has been used by wallet developers Rainbow and Zerion.

DEX SynFutures raises $22 million

The decentralized derivatives exchange SynFutures closed a Series B funding round of $22 million.

Its participants included Pantera Capital, HashKey Capital and Susquehanna International Group.

Co-founder and CEO Rachel Lin, in a comment to The Block, declined to disclose the project’s valuation but allowed for the launch of the platform’s own token in the future.

Membrane Labs raises $20 million

The crypto-prime broker Membrane Labs closed a Series A round of $20 million, CoinDesk reports.

It was led by Brevan Howard Digital and Point72 Ventures with participation from Flow Traders, QCP Capital, Two Sigma Ventures, Electric Capital, Jump Crypto, GSR Markets, Belvedere Trading and Framework Ventures.

The funds will be used to build trading infrastructure for the crypto industry.

Elixir closes $7.5 million Series A at a $100 million valuation

The DeFi protocol Elixir closed a Series A round of $7.5 million. The project valuation reached $100 million. This is according to The Block.

It was led by Hack VC with participation from NGC Ventures, AngelList Ventures, Bloccelerate, Ledger Prime, Genesis Trading, Hudson River Trading and other investors.

Coin Metrics raises $6.7 million

The analytics firm Coin Metrics raised about $6.7 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

A Coin Metrics spokesperson told The Block that the funds came from a new investor.

Vitalik Buterin backs Nocturne Labs focused on privacy in Ethereum

The Ethereum-focused startup Nocturne Labs closed a seed round of $6 million. It was led by Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital.

The funds were also provided by Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, Bankless Ventures, Hack VC, Robot Ventures.

Nocturne is developing a protocol that will enable anonymous transactions in the Ethereum ecosystem.

The solution is expected to launch on the mainnet in November. In the future, support for L2-solutions will follow.