The cryptocurrency industry is attracting an increasing number of institutional players. This is reflected in new investments in infrastructure and in the growing attention that companies pay to Bitcoin as an asset class. The most important events of the past weeks are in ForkLog’s roundup.<\/p>\n
Binance invested<\/a> in five \u201cthe most effective projects\u201d as part of the fifth season of its incubator programme.<\/p>\n Among the selected startups:<\/p>\n In this season, more than 900 companies applied and only 2% were admitted to participate.<\/p>\n The Paris-based AI project Mistral AI raised<\/a> \u20ac105m in a seed round. The sum is a record for this stage of financing in Europe. According to the FT, the round valued the startup at \u20ac240m.<\/p>\n Journalists say the size of the investment reflects the AI boom and Europe\u2019s desire to create a viable alternative to Silicon Valley firms such as OpenAI, backed by Microsoft, or Google\u2019s DeepMind.<\/p>\n \n\u201cThere is a growing realisation that this technology is transformative, and Europe needs to do something with it as regulator and as customer and investor,\u201d said Arthur Mensch.<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n A former DeepMind researcher founded the firm together with Timothe Lacroix and Guillaume Lample.<\/p>\n The funding round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Investors included former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, billionaire Xavier Niel and the French state investment bank Bpifrance.<\/p>\n Mistral AI currently has no product. The first employees started at the company in the first half of June. In early 2024 the startup plans to launch a \u201clarge language model\u201d analogous to the \u201cgenerative AI\u201d underpinning the ChatGPT app.<\/p>\n The blockchain-based compute network provider for AI platforms Gensyn raised $43 million<\/a> in a Series A round led by a16z. Participants included CoinFund, Canonical Crypto, Protocol Labs, Eden Block and other investors.<\/p>\n The London-based startup is building a marketplace protocol that lets owners of small data centres and even individual devices provide compute power for machine learning. Buyer-seller relationships are settled on the blockchain.<\/p>\n Gensyn acknowledged that the AI boom, sparked by the success of ChatGPT, helped drive the funding.<\/p>\n According to a16z, Gensyn\u2019s solution can increase available power for machine learning by 10-100x.<\/p>\n Neutron \u2014 a blockchain project in the Cosmos ecosystem Cosmos<\/a> \u2014 closed a seed round of funding for $10m<\/a> led by Binance Labs and CoinFund. Other investors include: Delphi Ventures, LongHash, Semantic Ventures and Nomad.<\/p>\n Neutron offers an \u201ceconomical and secure environment\u201d for creating smart contracts and decentralised applications. The infrastructure and tools are built on Cosmos SDK and CosmWasm technologies, ensuring compatibility with 51 appchains<\/a> in the ecosystem.<\/p>\n \n\u201cNeutron was created to address three main problems faced by Cosmos smart-contract developers: lack of security, reliable neutrality and access to cross-chain infrastructure,\u201d said one of the platform\u2019s co-founders Avril Duteil.<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The project started in May and was the first Cosmos blockchain launched with Replicated Security. This feature allows so-called \u201cconsumer chains\u201d to connect to validators of the Cosmos Hub for safe operation of applications.<\/p>\n According to the team, the funds will be directed to expanding the Neutron ecosystem and to spur the development of new dapps<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n
AI startup Mistral AI raises a record \u20ac105m in Europe<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Gensyn cross-chain compute AI network raises $43m<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Cosmos-based Neutron blockchain raises $10m<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Connext cross-chain protocol raises $7.5m<\/strong><\/h2>\n