White Star Capital Digital Asset Fund - newsletter #59
Mind numbing Q3 2021 fundraising figures 🤯
Total Q3 crypto company fundraising surpassed over 300 funding rounds accounting for $8.2bn
Total Q3 crypto company fundraising surpassed over 300 funding rounds accounting for $8.2bn. CeFi companies raised 50% of the Q3 capital while Infrastructure and NFTs also raised a significant amount. Surprisingly, DeFi protocols and companies raised the least amount of funds throughout Q3.
The year and a half crypto bull market has brought traditional venture funds into the space. U.S early-stage venture capital fundraising surpassed $15bn across nearly 1,600 deals. Additionally, existing crypto funds like Multicoin, Paradigm, 1Confirmation, Variant, a16z, et al have collectively amassed new funds with deeper pockets.
With the absorbent amount of capital sloshing around and the ever-expanding crypto market, crypto companies are raising money in one of the most opportune times imaginable. The size of the crypto market will continue to grow across all the above categories as well as within new emergent categories including DAOs, the Metaverse, social networks, and more. The only question remaining is will Q4 crypto fundraising outpace the previous quarter?
🔦 White Star & Portfolio Spotlight
RLY venture studio launches with fresh backing from Paris Hilton and Marc Andreessen
SuperLayer’s debut comes as Rally community members debate the ecosystem’s decentralization plan.
Ledn raises savings rates starting in November!
🏦 Enterprises & Institutions
Coinbase hits number 1 spot on Apple's US App Store
Crypto exchange operator Coinbase's mobile app has hit the number one spot on Apple’s U.S. App Store, making it the most downloaded iOS app in the U.S. over the last few days.
Facebook teases NFT support in keynote on its ambitious plans for a digital Metaverse
Facebook and its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, devoted a keynote presentation Thursday to unveiling an ambitious framework for creating a 3-D virtual world known as the Metaverse.
Wharton School to accept crypto tuition payments for new blockchain program
Dubbed the Economics of Blockchain and Digital Assets, the new program is aimed at professionals with finance and tech backgrounds and will cover use cases of blockchain, smart contracts, and the structure of DAOs.
Amazon Web Services looks to drive crypto settlement and custody to the cloud
The right candidate will transform the way firms transact in crypto, stablecoins, CBDCs and NFTs, said an AWS job post.
⚖️ Government & Regulation
European Central Bank appoints 30 members to digital euro advisory group
The members will advise the Eurosystem on designing and distributing a potential digital euro, a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
SEC will not approve leveraged bitcoin ETF
The report comes two days after Valkyrie Investments filed to offer 1.25x leveraged bitcoin futures ETF.
Financial Action Task Force releases finalized crypto guidance
The finalized guidance contains clarifications to the standards found in its previous draft guidance, including how NFTs and DeFi should be viewed by regulators in relation to the standards.
El Salvador announces purchase of 420 bitcoin
The fresh purchase is worth roughly $24.7m at current prices
India likely to regulate crypto, not ban it, in upcoming budget
The government is likely to opt for regulating cryptocurrencies as an asset class, similar to commodities, with appropriate taxation of transactions and gains.
💰 Funding & Exits
Squads raises $1.5m to make DAO creation as easy as starting a group chat
The round was led by Collab+Currency with participation from Reciprocal Ventures, Volt Capital, Chaotic Capital, 6thman Ventures, Republic Capital, 8186 Capital and Solana Capital.
Ruby.Exchange closes $2.8m funding for first NFT-powered AMM
Investors include NGC, Flow Ventures, Wintermute, the SKALE Ecosystem Fund, Morningstar Ventures, Yield Ventures, HashKey, CitizenX, and ZBS Capital.
Artnome’s NFT project bags $3m seed raise
Galaxy Digital and Galaxy Interactive co-led the seed round, with Red Swan Ventures, CMT Digital, Sfermion, Draper Dragon and Richard Entrup all participating.
Tulip Protocol raises $5m seed round
Investors include Jump Capital, Alameda Research, Amber Group, Cadenza Ventures & others.
Paradigm leads $5m seed funding round for play-to-earn game AI arena
Developer ArenaX Labs plans to launch the game in early 2022.
Decentralized identity startup Spruce raises $7.5m
Ethereal Ventures and Electric Capital led the round, with Alameda Research, Coinbase Ventures and Protocol Labs also joining in.
Three Arrows Capital backs $10m raise for DeFi on Cardano
Major DeFi investors piled into the Ardana project, including some that have never invested in Cardano before.
FWB raises $10m in a token sale
The raise was led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Pace Capital, Kindred Ventures, Spark Ventures, and Li Jin.
Palantir-linked Elementus raises $12m for crypto intelligence platform
The round was led by Velvet Sea Ventures with participation from Alameda Research, BlockFi, Pomp Investments, Lightspeed, Gemini Frontier Fund, Blockchain.com and Avon Ventures.
NFT software firm Nameless raises $15m to expand its team
Mechanism Capital led the seed round at a $75m valuation.
Osmosis closes $21m token sale led by Paradigm
The Cosmos-based decentralized exchange says its TVL has reached $500m since its June launch.
Alameda Research pumps $75m funding into Voyager Digital
The two will work together to tap opportunities in non-fungible tokens and crypto derivatives.
NFT gaming firm The Sandbox raises $93m
The round was led by SoftBank.
Blockchain infrastructure provider Alchemy clinches unicorn status in $250m fundraise led by a16z
The round values the firm at $3.5bn.
Digital Currency Group raises $700m
The funding round valued the company at $10bn and was led by SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund 2 and Latin America Fund, and included GIC, Ribbit Capital and Alphabet Inc.’s CapitalG.
Crypto investment firm Sanctor Capital raises $20m for first fund
Veterans of Crypto Briefing started Sanctor earlier this year with a focus on GameFi.
Collab+Currency closes a new $60m crypto fund
Sfermion raises $100m NFT fund aimed at accelerating the emergence of the metaverse
Investors include Alan Howard, Chris Dixon, Marc Andreessen, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Matthew Roszak, and Animoca Brands
‘Open finance’ project Findora launches $100m ecosystem fund
The fund will be used for research and to develop new applications and infrastructure.
Avalanche launches fresh $220m investment fund
Contributions coming from the Avalanche Foundation itself, as well as Ava Labs — an Avalanche focused incubator — and investors Polychain Capital, Three Arrows Capital, Dragonfly Capital, CMS Holdings, Republic Capital, R/Crypto Fund, Collab+Currency, Lvna Capital and Finality Capital Partners.
Richard Li, Winklevoss-backed CMCC Global targets $300m for latest crypto fund
CMCC Global, an early investor in the Solana blockchain, has also backed Cosmos and Terra.
Celsius acquiring Israeli cybersecurity company GK8 for $115m
GK8 was founded by Lior Lamesh and Shahar Shamai, who have worked as cybersecurity experts at the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel.
NYDIG acquires British bitcoin startup Bottlepay in stock purchase
The crypto custody and investment firm is paying for the deal in shares worth around $300m.
🚀 Project Launches & Updates
Deadmau5, Gregory Siff merge digital and physical art with Solana NFT drop
The duo is tapping metaverse studio Looks Rare to turn real-life art into NFTs – live from Red Rocks.
🔥 Other Bits We're Excited About
Quentin Tarantino to offer seven uncut scenes from ‘Pulp Fiction’ as NFTs
The award-winning director and writer is auctioning off seven uncut scenes from “Pulp Fiction” as nonfungible tokens, also including original handwritten scripts from the film and exclusive audio commentary from Tarantino himself.