Crypto funding: Metaverse, gaming and fintechs dominate $80M week

Eleven crypto startups raked in approximately $80 million in new funds to expand product lines and start new projects. 

Animoca Brands was the heaviest hitter, raising $20 million via a new ordinary share offering priced at A$4.50 ($2.90), according to a press release.

Blockchain technology venture capital firm CMCC Global led the fundraise. Other investors participated as well, including Kingsway Capital, Liberty City Ventures, GameFi Ventures and others. 

Animoca co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu also personally invested. 

The fresh capital will go toward an ongoing project called Mocaverse, an online membership-based platform that features a 8,888-strong NFT collection.

The next development for the metaverse project will be the rollout of Moca ID, another NFT collection that’s non-transferable and will be used solely to establish people’s on-chain identity for access to exclusive experiences. There will also be the opportunity to amass loyalty points.

Blockchain financial services gain steam

French fintech Fipto and financial services company Flashwire raised hefty sums this week.

Fipto, based in Paris, took in $16 million and has been a registered digital asset service provider (DASP) in France since March 2023. It’s allowed to offer crypto asset exchange services and custody. 

The company mainly serves companies who want to manage their digital asset portfolio and send crypto internationally to other businesses. Fipto supports bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), USD Coin (USDC), tether (USDT) and six other cryptocurrencies. 

“Payments in digital currencies make it possible to simplify international transactions,” Fipto CEO and co-founder Patrick Mollard said in a statement. “Traditional transactions can take several days to complete, are difficult to trace and can be costly.”

Serena Capital and Motier Ventures were the main investors in Fipto. 

On the other hand, Flashwire, is perhaps most recognizable for its online banking platform that gives access to crypto, raised $10 million in a series A funding round. 

Legend Trading, Cobo, GATE.io, VeChain, CyberX, SuperChain Capital, and others participated in the round. 

Flashwire’s other products include Stella Pay, a Visa-debit card that’s crypto-enabled and Anxin Finance, a collateralized crypto lending platform exclusively for institutional clients.

After the fundraise, the company said it plans to hire more people, grow its product line, and enhance research and development capabilities. 

Other notable fundraises

• GamePhilos raised $8 million in seed funding from Xterio, Animoca, and others to build a play-to-earn game called Age of Dino. 
• Mythic Protocol closed an oversubscribed $6.5 million seed round led by Shima Capital and Alpha JWC to build a Web3-based shooter game called Riftstorm among other offerings.
• Ethereum layer-2 protocol Layer N brought in $5 million from Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and dao5.
• Cross-border payment solution Parallax raised $4.5 million from Dragonfly Capital, Circle Ventures and a number of other venture capital firms and angel investors. 
• Movement Labs locked down $3.4 million in pre-seed funding and is also launching a blockchain called M1 on Avalanche.
• Octav received a seed investment worth $2.65 million to build a DeFi labeler to compete with the likes of Etherscan.
• Crypto trading platform IMMIX emerged from stealth, closing a $2.7 million seed round led by MassMutual Ventures.
• Wallet security firm 0xPass raised $1.8 million in an effort to boost safety for opting for non-custodial solutions.

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