Funding Roundup: Investors Are Bidding Small But Plenty on Crypto Startups

Startups locked down a total of $185 million from investors this week — quite the dip from the $578 million emerging Web3 companies locked down over the same period from one year prior, data from DeFiLama shows. 

On a cumulative funding basis, things are down. But things are looking up when it comes to the net number of startups pulling off capital raises. 

Around the same time last year, only three startups were said to have landed outside capital:  Dune Analytics, Phantom and FTX. Let’s move on…

Now, 20 different startups managed to land funding, albeit under smaller raises. 

So, who were the lucky funding winners?

SIMBA Chain

While it may not be your traditional definition of “funding,” blockchain enterprise solutions provider SIMBA Chain, brought in $30 million from the US Air Force’s STRATFI program — on the heels of several previous military-commissioned projects undertaken by the startup.  

Born out of the University of Notre Dame in 2017, SIMBA Chain connects government agencies with Web3 tech. The chain has been working with USAF to tokenize its budget and improve its accounting. 

Bray Ritchie, SIMBA’s chief executive, said in a statement that the government is sending a “strong demand signal for blockchain technology,” adding that the inner workings of the Department of Defense’s immense supply chain “signals an opportunity to collaborate and increase adoption within the commercial industry.”

Block Joy

Venture-backed Web3 infrastructure developer Block Joy landed a $12 million Series A.

Investors, just to name a few: Gradient Ventures, Draper Dragon and Dragon Roark.

Can we get one more (funding) dragon? Please? People are asking.

The company has earmarked the incoming cash to build products that plan to slash Block Joy’s enterprise operations costs— including running staking nodes and utilizing APIs — by more than 80%. 

Existing clients include centralized exchanges Binance and Crypto.com. And new networks are on the way, including Ethereum 2, Cosmos and Solana.

Pow.re

Canadian crypto mining company Pow.re secured a $9.2 million Series A led by Haru United with participation from Trinito Corporation, RFD Capital and others.

Haru United also made an $18 million bullish bet on the company’s first high-density computing (HDC) site in Paraguay.

The latest investment bumped up Pow.re’s valuation to $150 million, per the company.

Wait, there’s more (dollars):

• Hypernative, a crypto-security company, landed $9 million in seed funding from IBI’s tech fund. Piling on were the likes of Blockdaemon, Alchemy, Borderless, CMT Digital and Nexo.
  Blockchain rollups project Sovereign Labs secured $7.4 million in a round led by Haun Ventures.
• Crypto security startup Sec3 secured $10 million in a seed round led by Multicoin Capital.
• Web3 marketer Addressable landed $7.5 million from Fabric Ventures and Viola Ventures.

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