Funding Roundup: Celestia’s raised $155M

Meanwhile, a16z announced its first raise for a decentralized science (DeSci) project

article-image

Ruslan Lytvyn/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

The biggest raise this week came from Celestia. It announced a $100 million round led by Bain Capital Crypto, with participation from 1kx, Syncracy Capital, Placeholder and Robot Ventures. 

The $100 million has brought the “project’s total amount raised to $155 million,” per a press statement. 

“When Celestia launched last year as the first modular data availability layer, it scaled blockspace from the dial-up era to the broadband era,” said Mustafa Al-Bassam, co-founder of Celestia and chair of the Celestia Foundation.

Read more: Celestia, the first modular data availability network, launches on mainnet

“Now, the core developers have introduced the technical roadmap to scale blockspace to the fiber optic era — while keeping it verifiable and low latency.”

A16z made some waves this week as well, announcing its first investment into a decentralized science investment. 

The project, AminoChain, announced a $5 million seed round which was — of course — led by Andreessen Horowitz. 

“We believe that blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize almost any industry where transparency, security, and ownership are core and presents a tremendous opportunity to accelerate progress in healthcare and science,” said Arianna Simpson, an a16z general partner investing in Web3. 

Loading Tweet..

According to its funding announcement — which also served as the project coming out of stealth — AminoChain seeks to give patients who donate bio-samples “the transparency to finally know what is happening with their donations to society.”

Read more from our opinion section: We need to decentralize science

The project is a “technology that connects enterprise medical institutions and on which healthcare applications can be built,” AminoChain said.

Other notable rounds: 

  • Polymarket is reportedly mulling the raise of more than $50 million in new capital, per The Information.
  • Initia announced a $14 million Series A led by Theory Ventures, with participation from Delphi Ventures and HackVC, among others. 
  • Mawari Network said it raised over $10 million in strategic funding in a round led by Borderless, 1kx and Antfield. 
  • Daylight announced a $6 million round led by Union Square Ventures and 1kx. Framework Ventures and Chapter One also participated in the round.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 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

Research Report Templates (1).png

Research

Aave’s revenues have doubled from April lows and are fast approaching all-time highs. With 35% of borrow interest coming from ETH and 55% from stablecoins, Aave is emerging as a powerful proxy as an ETH and stablecoin beta. As looping strategies accelerate growth and Horizon positions the protocol to ride the RWA wave, Aave is shaping up as one of DeFi’s most compelling multi-narrative plays.

article-image

Solana saw $78 million in REV for August

article-image

Lit Protocol’s Vincent is shifting agentic finance from toy demos to production rails

article-image

The new system aims to unify Europe’s fragmented tokenized asset settlement and cut cross-border costs

by Blockworks /
article-image

Tron slashed fees by 60% as Plasma looms, threatening its USDT moat

article-image

The acquisition adds evaluation-based funding to Kraken Pro, giving traders access to capital on performance

by Blockworks /
article-image

The deal merges real-time pricing data with on-chain credit ratings, aiming to boost institutional adoption of decentralized finance

by Blockworks /