Funding Wrap: Venture Capitalists Continue to Prioritize Web3

Around the world, over $200 million has been invested in crypto this past week

article-image

Source: DALL·E

share

key takeaways

  • Symbolic Capital raised a $50 million venture fund to support building Web3 companies
  • Animoca Brands KK is supporting Web3 efforts in Japan after raising $45 million

Web3 startups continued to be an area of focus for investors this past week.

Cryptocurrency venture capital firm Symbolic Capital, led by Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, raised a $50 million venture fund to support building Web3 companies.

Along with Kenzi Wang, co-founder of Cere, Symbolic Capital wants to use its newly raised funds to back consumer-facing decentralized apps. It has previously invested in gaming studio BlinkMoon and other Polygon-based platforms.

On the other side of the world in Japan, Animoca Brands KK also raised a significant amount of money — $45 million — to support Web3 and NFT efforts in the country. 

The latest capital will also be directed into securing licenses for intellectual property (IP) of popular anime and manga series and increasing the value and utility of the company’s branded content.

Estonian crypto startup focused on cryptocurrency options trading, BITLEVEX, secured $50 million from GEM Capital, an alternative investment group that has poured millions of dollars into Web3 companies this past month.

GEM Capital previously committed $50 million to decentralized farming protocol XION Finance and $25 million to Geeq, a multi-blockchain platform that uses a patent-pending blockchain consensus mechanism.

Web3 developer platform thirdweb also locked in a significant amount of cash from investors this week, closing a $24 million Series A led by crypto investment firm Haun Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Shopify, Protocol Labs, Shrug VC and Joseph Lacob. 

Katie Haun, founder and CEO of Haun Ventures, said in a statement that she hopes that the firm’s investment portfolio can “accelerate the next generation of the internet.”

“As complexity to develop in Web3 continues to increase, the experienced team at thirdweb led by Furqan and Steven have built an elegant solution that allows developers to build fast while avoiding costly mistakes,” she said. “I’m pleased to see proven founders of this caliber dedicating their next chapter to crypto and look forward to supporting their efforts.”

Steven Bartlett, thirdweb’s founder is a university dropout who previously built Web2 company Social Chain, valued at $600 million. His latest project, thirdweb, provides tools for its users to launch and manage Web3 projects including NFT (non-fungible token) drops, digital marketplaces, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), games and many more. 

“Web3 is the most important technological shift I’ve witnessed in my lifetime,” Bartlett said in a statement. “I don’t think anybody quite realizes how much Web3 is going to change the world.”

Other worthy fundraise mentions this week:

  • Credit risk assessment infrastructure Web3 startup Spectral secured $23 million from General Catalyst and Social Capital.
  • Comm, a company that wants to be Web3’s Discord, raised a $5 million seed round.
  • Solana mobile stack, a subsidiary of Solana Labs, secured $4.5 million in seed funding led by SBI Holdings.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

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.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Featured.png

Research

Helium stands at a pivotal moment in its evolution as a decentralized wireless network, balancing rapid growth, economic restructuring, and global expansion. With accelerated growth in domestic DAUs and Hotspots supporting its network, Helium is leveraging strategic partnerships and innovative proposals to scale internationally. The recent implementation of HIP 138, “Return to HNT,” has unified its token economy under HNT, simplifying participation and strengthening liquidity, while HIP 139’s phase-out of CBRS refocuses efforts on scalable Wi-Fi offload. Meanwhile, governance shifts under HIP 141 raise questions about centralization as Nova Labs consolidates control over the roadmap.

article-image

In 2011, WikiLeaks faced a financial blockade imposed by the US government. It was Bitcoin’s first major test.

article-image

Kado’s founder Emery Andrew spoke to Blockworks about the acquisition and what’s next for the team

article-image

LayerZero’s Bryan Pellegrino chatted with Blockworks about the firm’s next steps and its 10-year runway

article-image

Colosseum co-founder Matty Taylor is seeing “high-performance [Solana] founders showing a lot of interest in private trading technology”

article-image

Executives weigh the growth potential they see in the public stock and private credit/equities arenas

article-image

Players can stake ME, trade tokens and link wallets to climb the leaderboard