Funding Roundup: Funding Gains Momentum in Second Week of 2023

A handful of crypto projects have received venture funding in the second week of 2023.

The most significant fundraise was secured by CyberX, a market maker for digital assets, which secured a $15 million Series A led by Foresight Ventures.

CyberX plans to use its latest financing to expand its team internationally, with a specific focus on its Asian and North American markets and on continuing to integrate DeFi protocols into its network.

“Liquidity is fundamental for further developments in this nascent crypto industry. It is pivotal to have experienced market makers like CyberX to retain market efficiency,” Forest Bai, CEO of Foresight Ventures, said in a statement. 

“We believe CyberX has the advanced technology, experienced team, and extensive market knowledge to emerge at the forefront of the competition, which is why we have made this substantial investment of $15M into their future,” he said.

A social cryptocurrency wallet dubbed The Easy Company also secured a large amount of funding, closing a $14.2 million deal with investors including Lobby Capital, Relay Ventures, and 6th Man Ventures, among others.

The wallet is available on iOS and Android and is designed to combine user profiles with social discovery features similar to what exists on Instagram.

Another wallet company that caught venture capital interest was Momentum Safe (MSafe), a multi-signature wallet solution on the Aptos/Move ecosystem.

MSafe closed a $5 million seed round led by Jump Capital, with participation from Circle Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Superscrypt (founded by Temasek), Redpoint Ventures, SV Angel, Shima Capital, and Spartan Group.

Proceeds from the latest financing round will be used to grow the MSafe team and invest in product development, the company noted in a statement. The team has upcoming features such as DAO tooling solutions and recurring payment capabilities to be expected over the next few months.

“MSafe’s non-custodial digital asset management platform offers best-in-class security, decentralization and flexibility needed by organizations,” Saurabh Sharma, head of investments at Jump Crypto, said. “Excited to support MSafe’s strong team with ambitious goals and capabilities to scale web3 financial services.”

Other noteworthy raises this week include:

• Open source protocol for consensus capital markets, Alkimiya, landed $7.2 million in seed funding led by Castle Island Ventures and 1kx.
• Decentralized peer-to-peer gateway on the Cosmos network, Quasar, received $5.4 million from Shima Capital, bringing it to a $70 million valuation.
• Open Forest Protocol (OFP), an on chain measurement and reporting platform working on forestation, secured $4.1 million in pre-seed funding from over 17 venture capital firms and angel investors.

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