Institutional Bulletin: Unchained Raises $60 Million, and Berachain $42 Million

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

Bitcoin company Unchained raised $60 million

The Bitcoin-focused company Unchained raised $60 million following a Series B funding round led by Valor Equity Partners.

Other investors included NYDIG, Trammell Venture Partners, Ecliptic Capital and Highland Capital Partners.

The firm was founded in 2016 in Austin, Texas. It provides custody services to retail and institutional clients, as well as lending and trading services.

The Unchained CEO Joe Kelly emphasised that recent shocks such as the FTX collapse helped the company attract new clients, even as demand for loans declined and trading volumes fell.

The raised funds are planned to be used to launch new products, including mobile apps.

Layer-1 Berachain raised $42 million

The Layer-1 Berachain raised $42 million in a funding round led by Polychain Capital.

Other investors included Hack VC, Shima Capital, Robot Ventures, Goldentree Asset Management, as well as Tendermint co-founder Zaki Manian and Celestia founder Mustafa Al-Bassam.

The blockchain has been in development since late 2021. The project aims to enable users to lock tokens in staking, while providing liquidity for DeFi protocols.

The Berachain network is built on the Cosmos SDK with a Proof-of-Liquidity consensus mechanism and is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

According to the developers, the first public testnet will be launched in the coming weeks.

Standard Chartered’s crypto custody arm raised $36 million

Standard Chartered’s crypto custody subsidiary Zodia Custody raised $36 million as part of a Series A financing round.

Previously, the London-based custodian was owned solely by the bank (90%) and the financial services provider Northern Trust. Zodia Custody’s CEO Julian Sawyer declined to disclose the post-round ownership structure but noted that Standard Chartered remained the majority shareholder.

Venture arm SC Venutres and Japanese financial group SBI Holdings participated in the funding. The latter became the second-largest owner of Zodia Custody, Sawyer noted.

The company will use the funds to expand beyond its current markets in Europe and Asia. According to Zodia’s head, the firm is considering business opportunities in the Middle East. However, the U.S. is not in its near-term plans due to regulatory uncertainty.

Zodia is also using the raised capital to expand the list of supported digital assets and add services, including Ethereum staking.

Thetanuts Finance raised $17 million

Thetanuts Finance, a DeFi protocol focused on structured crypto products, raised $17 million led by Polychain Capital, Hyperchain Capital and Magnus Capital.

The project will use the funds to create a thriving two-sided market for altcoin options and expand the list of assets available for trading.

Currently the platform offers contracts on Ethereum (ETH), wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Fantom (FTM), Avalanche (AVAX) and several other cryptocurrencies.

Thetanuts Finance is one of the first projects to implement the decentralized option vaults model. However, the company noted that to develop two-sided markets a substantial expansion of asset diversity is required.

Thanks to the funding, the project will add leverage functionality, design a new interface, and allow users to buy options around the clock without prior approval.

TinyTap, Animoca Brands’ Web3 education division, raised $8.5 million

TinyTap, Animoca Brands’ subsidiary, raised $8.5 million from Sequoia China and Polygon at a $100 million valuation. Other investors include Liberty City Ventures, Kingsway Capital and Shima Capital.

The company was founded in 2012 in Israel. It offers a library of more than 250,000 educational games in 24 languages for children and teens.

Animoca acquired TinyTap in July 2022 for around $39 million, buying 84% of the organization’s shares. The company began fundraising in October and closed it in February.

The organization will allocate the funds to develop its existing infrastructure and expand in the Web3 space.

TinyTap will offer students custody wallets for storing tokens and credentials, as well as access to PublisherNFT — an educational program based on non-fungible tokens.

The company also has plans to decentralise the education system, to be announced later.