Funding Wrap: The Web3 Startups Funded This Past Week

Crypto startups notched hundreds of millions in fresh cash from some of the usual venture capital suspects including Jump, a16z and Brevan Howard

article-image

Blockworks exclusive art by axel rangel

share

key takeaways

  • Jump Crypto led a $40 million funding round for blockchain network Injective Labs
  • CreatorDAO received $20 million to help grow the creator economy, with a16z leading the raise

Over $100 million poured into cryptocurrency startups this past week as a handful of cryptocurrency startups secured funding from prominent venture capitalists in the space. 

Topping the list — Cosmos-based interoperable smart contracts network, Injective Labs, secured $40 million from its latest round of funding, led by Jump Crypto. Brevan Howard’s BH Digital, the digital asset division of the hedge fund, also participated in the round.

Eric Chen, Injective Labs’ CEO, told Blockworks the company wants to build the best possible environment for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. 

“We’re evolving towards a general purpose [layer-1] blockchain that has a sector-specific focus within decentralized finance applications,” Chen said. “Injective exists for developers who want to build something that only the core modules or core stack of Injective can provide.”

Service companies that are bridging the gap between Web3 and Web2 have also gained venture capital interest in the past week. 

Software-as-a-service startup Heirloom raised an $8 million seed round led by Ripple Labs and Forte Labs. The company allows organizations to mint a variety of Web3 assets such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized identities (DIDs) and verifiable credentials. 

Nick Daze, CEO of Heirloom, told Blockworks that the company was built with the intention of helping the crypto industry to reach a mainstream audience. 

“Our focus right now is three things: business development, staffing, and rolling out our first products,” Daze said. “Our first product coming to market is a no-code tool that lets stakeholders at enterprise scale companies tokenize, distribute and measure their assets without needing a computer science background.”

Money has also been funneled into Web3 companies building tools for the creator economy. 

CreatorDAO, a community that invests in creators in exchange for a percentage of their future earnings, announced today that it raised a $20 million seed funding round led by prominent crypto investor Andreessen Horowitz and Initialized Capital.

Up-and-coming creators apply to the DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) and selected participants receive access to capital, mentorship and technology that may help grow their audience. Celebrities such as Paris Hilton, The Chain Smokers and Andrew East have signed up to be a member of the DAO’s larger community. 

“Creators today are businesses, but no one’s figured out how to help them realize their growth potential,” Michael Ma, CEO and co-founder at CreatorDAO said in a statement. “[Creators are an] investment vacuum similar to the one that Y Combinator and angel investors filled for tech entrepreneurs 17 years ago.”

Other notable funding rounds this week:

  • Web3 accelerator LongHash Ventures launches a $100 million fund to grow the Asian crypto landscape.
  • NFT media distribution platform Pinata raised a $21.5 million Series A co-led by Greylock and Pantrea.
  • Zero-knowledge proof startup RISC Zero raised a $12 million seed round led by Bain Capital Crypto.
  • Jito labs — a Web3 company building tools to improve MEV transparency and efficiency — secured $10 million from Multicoin Capital and Framework Ventures.

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

Unlocked by Template (10).png

Research

Innovations on Aptos’ technical design through Raptr, Shardines, and Zaptos approach near-optimal latency and throughput by unlocking 100% utilization of network resources, with the capacity to settle 260k transactions per second with latencies less than 800ms. The original Move language was revamped with the launch of Move 2, supporting more expressivity in smart contract logic and a scalable ability to interact with high volume datasets. The ecosystem has benefitted from strong asset inflows, now hosting over $1.3B in stablecoins, $450M in bridged BTC, and $530M in RWAs. Activity in the Aptos ecosystem has grown notably over the past year, with monthly application revenue reaching ~$835k and monthly DEX volumes growing to over $5B, both at new all time highs.

article-image

Also, only three tokens have outperformed bitcoin so far this year: XMR, HYPE and SKY

article-image

The fund group has submitted proposals in recent months for other funds that would hold litecoin, solana, XRP, HBAR, Sui and others

article-image

Momentum’s back — BTC leads, risk assets follow

article-image

Ondo Finance’s acquisition of blockchain development company Strangelove follows its buy of Oasis Pro

article-image

Cryptocurrency and stock traders alike had a lot to unpack Wednesday

article-image

The government says Storm was a money-hungry aid to criminals; the defense says it’s not his fault that people used his code for illicit activities.