Institutional Bulletin: NEAR Protocol raises $150 million, OpenSea valued at $13 billion

The cryptocurrency industry is drawing an increasing number of institutional players. This is evident in both new investments in infrastructure and the growing attention that companies are directing to bitcoin as an asset class. The most important events of the past weeks are in ForkLog’s roundup.

NFT marketplace OpenSea raised $300 million at a $13.3 billion valuation

The NFT marketplace OpenSea closed a Series C funding round of $300 million. Its valuation reached $13.3 billion.

The funding round was led by Paradigm and Coatue.

The raised funds will be used to improve customer service, hire staff, develop products and grow the community.

OpenSea CEO Devin Fynzer announced the launch of a grant programme to support developers and content creators to popularise the NFT ecosystem.

The NEAR Protocol token hit a new high on the back of a $150 million financing round

The native NEAR Protocol (NEAR) token surged to a new all-time high above $19.7 on the back of the project team’s announcement of a new financing round of $150 million.

It was led by the venture fund Three Arrows Capital with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Alameda Research, Dragonfly Capital and other investors.

The NEAR team will use the proceeds to accelerate mass adoption of Web 3.0 by funding the ecosystem. The investments will also support regional hubs and marketing efforts.

Figment raised $110 million at a $1.4 billion valuation

The blockchain infrastructure provider Figment raised $110 million in a Series C funding round. Investors valued the firm at $1.4 billion.

The round was led by private equity firm Thoma Bravo with participation from Counterpoint Global Morgan Stanley, ParaFi Capital, Avon Ventures, Binance, Bitstamp and others.

With the funds, Figment will add staking support across a broader set of PoS blockchains and hire additional developers.

Figment earns around $10 million per month and supports more than 50 blockchains, including Ethereum 2.0, Solana, Polkadot, NEAR and Avalanche.

Crypto startup Zero Hash raised $105 million

Zero Hash closed a Series B round of $105 million.

The round was led by NYCA Partners, Bain Capital and Point72 Ventures, the venture arm of billionaire Steven Cohen.

The funds will be used for marketing, development and scaling the team to meet regulatory requirements.

The firm also plans to double the number of supported assets to more than 80 by the end of 2022.

Zero Hash enables any platform to integrate trading, custody, staking of digital assets and DeFi into its own solutions. The company handles the backend and regulatory questions.

Swiss crypto bank Sygnum raised $90 million

The Swiss regulated crypto bank Sygnum closed a Series B financing round for $90 million. The valuation of the company reached approximately $800 million.

The funding round was led by Hong Kong-based financial company Sun Hung Kai & Co. with participation from Animoca Brands, WeMade, SBI Holdings, Meta Investments and others.

The funds will be used to develop yield farming and staking products, asset-management solutions with access to DeFi, and to establish new commercial relationships with leading blockchain ecosystems.

In 2021, Sygnum’s gross revenue surged tenfold, assets under management rose to more than $2 billion. The bank’s client base approached 1,000 institutions.

Cross-chain protocol Multichain raised $60 million from Binance Labs, Circle Ventures and Tron Foundation

Binance Labs led the funding round for cross-chain protocol Multichain (formerly Anyswap), which attracted $60 million in investments. The project’s valuation reached $1.2 billion.

Participants also included Sequoia China, IDG Capital, Three Arrows Capital, DeFiance Capital, Circle Ventures, Tron Foundation, Hypersphere Ventures, Primitive Ventures, Magic Ventures and HashKey.

Multichain provides infrastructure solutions for 25 popular blockchain ecosystems, including Ethereum, Fantom, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, Moonriver, Arbitrum, Polygon and Harmony.

Render Network, a decentralised rendering project, raised $30 million

The Render Network startup, which provides 3D rendering tools for NFT projects and metaverses, raised $30 million.

The round was led by Multicoin Capital. Other participants included Alameda Ventures, Sfermion and Solana Foundation, as well as business angels Vinnie Lingham and Bill Lee.

Rendering is the process of generating images in computer graphics. The decentralised Render Network enables this remotely, by purchasing RNDR computing power from other users who have idle GPUs.

This approach gives independent digital artists and small studios access to substantial computing power without the cost of equipment.

DeBank raised $25 million at a $200 million valuation

Sequoia Capital China led the $25 million round for DeBank. The valuation of the analytics service reached $200 million.

Participants included Dragonfly, Hash Global, Youbi and other angels. Strategic investments were provided by Coinbase Venture, Crypto.com, Circle and Ledger.

The service did not disclose how the funds would be used.

DeBank was founded in 2019 and supports hundreds of DeFi protocols across Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon and others.

Ready Player Me 3D avatar platform raised $13 million

The Wolf3D startup behind the Ready Player Me platform for creating universal avatars for various virtual spaces, raised $13 million.

The round was led by Taavet+Sten, the Wise and Teleport co-founders. Participants included Konvoy Ventures, Nordic Ninja, Samsung Next Ventures, Tiny VC, GitHub co-founder Tom Preston-Werner, and others.

Wolf3D will allocate the funding to accelerate global growth.

The company counts more than 900 virtual worlds using its solution.

Binance Labs invested $12 million in WOO Network

The WOO Network project raised $12 million from Binance’s venture arm as part of a Series A+ round.

WOO Network is a liquidity platform connecting users to exchanges, wallets, DeFi services and other projects.

Its ecosystem includes the centralized trading platform WOO X, the decentralised exchange WOOFi, and the institutional solution WOO Trade.

The platform also interacts with dYdX, Matcha, ParaSwap, 1inch, DODO and dozens of other projects.

Also in ForkLog:

• FTX launched a $2 billion venture fund.
• NFT marketplace aggregator Flip raised $6.5 million in seed funding.
• GameFi project Ertha Metaverse on Binance Smart Chain raised $5.4 million.
• Project Allbridge raised $2 million in investments from Race Capital.

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