Funding Wrap: Babylon announces $70M raise led by Paradigm

Babylon led the pack of funding announcements alongside OpenSocial, Aperture and Scrypt

article-image

Zwiebackesser/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Another week, another slew of venture capital rounds. 

Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon led this week’s raises, announcing a $70 million raise led by Paradigm on Thursday. 

Bullish Capital, Polychain Capital and Galaxy also participated in the round. 

“This latest round of investment will accelerate Babylon’s mission to enable a Bitcoin-secured decentralized economy. Babylon Bitcoin Staking protocol allows PoS systems like PoS chains, [layer-2s], DA layers, oracles, etc., to acquire staking capital from Bitcoin.”

PitchBook analyst Robert Le previously told Blockworks that he believes infrastructure projects will capture the attention of venture capital at this point in the cycle. 

Read more: Let’s talk Bitcoin staking: Babylon’s litepaper

“I still think infrastructure is still underdeveloped,” he told Blockworks at the time, citing prices he’s seen on Base. “There’s no way that we can say infrastructure [and blockchains are] mature when you pay $5 to sign a transaction.” 

“Trustless staking is a novel and fundamental primitive for bitcoin and the broader ecosystem,” Paradigm’s Arjun Balaji said in a statement. He added that the team is “at the frontier of bitcoin innovation.”

The week was quieter on the funding front, though it followed Farcaster’s announcement of $150 million

Speaking of Farcaster, Fortune reported that Neynar — which allows developers to build social applications on Farcaster — raised $11 million from Haun Ventures and Coinbase. 

Other notable funding news:

  • OpenSocial, an infrastructure layer to build social applications, announced a $5 million seed funding round, which closed in January 2024.*
  • DeFi platform Aperture announced a Series A raise, totaling $12 million across its rounds to bring its valuation to $250 million. The raise included Skyland Ventures, and Blockchain Founders Fund. 
  • Swiss-based crypto asset financial services company Scrypt announced a $5 million strategic funding round led by Braza Bank. 

*Note: Blockworks co-founder Jason Yanowitz participated in the OpenSocial round.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Salt Lake City, UT

MON - TUES, OCT. 7 - 8, 2024

Blockworks and Bankless in collaboration with buidlbox are excited to announce the second installment of the Permissionless Hackathon – taking place October 7-8 in Salt Lake City, Utah. We’ve partnered with buidlbox to bring together the brightest minds in crypto for […]

Salt Lake City, UT

WED - FRI, OCTOBER 9 - 11, 2024

Permissionless is a conference for founders, application developers, and users. Come meet the next generation of people building and using crypto.

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

4.png

Research

This months PPGC covered four main areas. Firstly, debriefing the progress and status of the mainnet implementation of the Ahmedabad hard fork. Secondly, a retrospective on the testnet phase of the Ahemdabad Hard Fork. Thirdly, an update on PIP-36 which involves replaying failed state syncs. Lastly, PIP-47 which pushes upgrades to the Polygon Protocol Council.

article-image

Institutions to test out the settlement of “digital assets and currencies” on a network that annually carries more than 5 billion financial messages

article-image

After Bitwise’s XRP ETF filing this week, one industry watcher notes: “Politics will determine whether this happens soon or in a few years”

article-image

Plus, a look back at some of the SEC’s biggest enforcement moves under Gurbir Grewal

article-image

The forward-looking financial system is being championed by several contributors to India’s UPI digital money system

article-image

Multiple teams are pursuing integration cross-chain and off-chain

article-image

An SEC spokesperson told Blockworks the Ripple judgment clashes with Supreme Court precedent and securities laws