Katherine Ross

Tiger Global reportedly marked down stakes in Bored Ape Yacht Club and OpenSea by 69% and 94% respectively, according to Bloomberg.&nbsp;



Tiger Global manages around $50 billion. It recorded an 18% paper loss in its largest fund at the end of September, the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-30/tiger-global-s-biggest-venture-fund-has-18-loss-after-markdowns">report</a> states.&nbsp;



Both OpenSea and BAYC parent company Yuga Labs cut jobs as part of restructuring earlier this fall. Yuga’s cuts impacted US teams, leaving over 120 employees at the company. Yuga, in March 2022, was <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bored-ape-yacht-club-creator-secures-whopping-450m-seed">valued at $4 billion</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;



OpenSea cut around <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/layoffs-opensea-nfts-lido">50% of its workforce</a>, a spokesperson confirmed to Blockworks at the time. The cuts came after a round of layoffs last year which saw the NFT marketplace slash 20% of its workforce.&nbsp;



OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer said that the platform would be “shifting to a smaller team with a direct connection to users.” At its peak in 2022, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/layoffs-opensea-nfts-lido#:~:text=The%20company%20was%20valued%20at,to%20rival%20NFT%20platform%20Blur.">OpenSea was valued at $13 billion</a>.&nbsp;



Both companies have been impacted by the slump in the NFT market, which <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/layoffs-opensea-nfts-lido#:~:text=The%20company%20was%20valued%20at,to%20rival%20NFT%20platform%20Blur.">has not bounced back</a> following its 2022 peak.&nbsp;



A JPMorgan report from Nov. 30 found that there has been a “positive impact” on both the NFT and DeFi spaces following the speculation around potential spot bitcoin ETF approvals.&nbsp;



However, as analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou notes, “While we do not doubt this recent revival in DeFi/NFT activity is a positive sign, we believe it is too early to be getting excited about it.”



Panigirtzoglou also attributed the launch of marketplaces such as Blur — a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blur-nft-volume-opensea">direct competitor to OpenSea</a> — as part of the pick up in interest.&nbsp;



Tiger Global isn’t the only one marking down its stake in the NFT marketplace either. As <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/coatue-cuts-value-of-opensea-stake-by-90-as-funds-returns-sag">reported</a> by The Information, Coatue cut the value of its stake by roughly 90% at the beginning of November. The marketplace’s value sits a little over $1 billion.&nbsp;



Tiger Global did not immediately return a request for comment.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tiger Global marks down stakes in BAYC, OpenSea: Bloomberg

James Cirrone

Late-stage fundraising from venture capital firms is drying up, and not just in the crypto sector, according to Marc Weinstein from crypto investment firm Mechanism Capital.



Weinstein told Blockworks that companies like Near and Alchemy raising hundreds of millions of dollars marked the tail end of the bull run.&nbsp;



“We’ve seen seed valuations come back to reality,” Weinstein said.&nbsp;



He pointed to <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/tiger-global">Tiger</a><a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/tiger-global" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> </a><a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/tiger-global">Global</a> as an example of a firm whose investments — FTX being a major inclusion in its portfolio — got wiped out following the tech rout of 2022. 



The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiger-global-writes-down-venture-funds-bets-by-33-in-2022-3f9f6ade?mod=article_inline&amp;adobe_mc=MCMID%3D84900517116986883594163765565566080043%7CMCORGID%3DCB68E4BA55144CAA0A4C98A5%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1682906082">reported</a> that its markdowns “erased $23 billion in value from Tiger’s giant holdings of startups around the globe.”



“[Tiger Global was] one of the players that had come into crypto in a really big way, and were writing these later stage checks,” Weinstein said. “When you see public company valuations in the tech sector dropping below the cash value of their previous rounds, down 50 to 80% in some instances, it&#8217;s not a surprise that later stage VC [venture capital] funding has really dried up.”&nbsp;



Blockworks previously reported on a Crunchbase report that showed <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/web3-funding-lowest-levels-2020">Web3 VC funding dropped 82% year to year</a> from $9.1 billion to $1.7 billion. Deal flow also slowed.&nbsp;



Recent data from “Big Four” accounting firm KPMG demonstrates that this phenomenon isn’t isolated to crypto and Web3.&nbsp;



“Global VC investment fell to $57 billion in Q1 2023 — a particularly low note when compared to the high of $200+ billion seen in the same quarter just one year ago,” KPMG’s April Venture Pulse report said.&nbsp;



“A myriad of factors combined to buffet the global VC market, from the protracted war in Ukraine and other geopolitical uncertainties to concerns about the global banking system following the sudden turbulence seen in Q1 2023. Stubbornly high inflation and still-increasing interest rates have also posed their own challenges.”



Weinstein agreed, adding that the fair value for a late stage growth equity business has changed as a result of rate hikes. Money is tighter now, he said, but his advice for founders of startups — should a bull market return — is to not raise money at too high of a valuation so as to avoid the crunch of the next bear market.



“If you went out in the bull cycle, and you raised at a $50 [million] to $100 million valuation, and you had seed-stage traction, and now you&#8217;ve launched your product and the market is down because retail investors and participants are bearish and institutions are cautious, you haven&#8217;t hit growth metrics. And now you&#8217;re in a position where you have to raise a down round.”



A down round simply means a company is raising money at a lower valuation than the prior round, diluting ownership of the company for everyone involved. Weinstein said this scenario can “feel like death for founders.”



And founders aren’t necessarily to blame when this happens. Weinstein explained the VCs are assets-under-management businesses, which means they make money off management fees. The larger their fund is, the more fees they can collect.&nbsp;



This dynamic affects startups because “oftentimes, venture funds will convince a founder that they need to raise more capital…at a higher valuation,” he said, adding that VCs will nudge them to accept dilution.



“I think that&#8217;s a practice of the bull market that when we look back on it we&#8217;re gonna say, ‘this was not a good idea for founders to listen to.’”



Weinstein’s advice? Raise enough capital to cover your expenses for the 12 to 18 months, build a minimum viable product, discover your customers, and iterate a version of your product or service that people will actually pay for.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Venture Capital Is Struggling, and Not Just in Crypto

Ornella Hernandez

<div id="highlights-block_628e515430c32" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>StarkWare quadruples valuation in six months</li>
 <li>Investors bet big on layer-2 solutions</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



StarkWare Industries, Ethereum (ETH) layer-2 scaling solutions developer, <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/building-tech-to-make-crypto-mainstream-starkware-quadruples-valuation-to-8b-301555008.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a> that it has raised $100 million, bringing its valuation to $8 billion from $2 billion. Six months ago, StarkWare <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/starkware-valuation-hits-2b-after-50m-series-c-round/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">raised</a> $50 million in a Series C funding round led by Sequoia Capital.



The Series D was led by venture capital firm Greenoaks Capital and by investment management company Coatue. Tiger Global and other undisclosed investors participated as well. There is also a secondary transaction to the round, in which employees sell their stocks, according to the company.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">We are thrilled to announce our $100M Series D at an $8B valuation. We would like to thank Greenoaks and Coatue &#8211; our lead investors, Tiger Global, and many of our existing investors, for their vote of confidence in the technology, products, and ecosystem that we’re building. <a href="https://t.co/0R1e1h31HK">pic.twitter.com/0R1e1h31HK</a>&mdash; StarkWare (@StarkWareLtd) <a href="https://twitter.com/StarkWareLtd/status/1529454921451458560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 25, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



StarWare’s latest funding takes place in the middle of a bear market and follows the crash of LUNA and TerraUSD (UST) cryptocurrencies. Despite this, StarkWare co-founder and chief executive officer Uri Kolodny said the raise was “a vote of confidence” in StarkWare’s tech stack.



StarkWare has established itself as a prominent Ethereum layer-2 scaling protocol and depends on its STARKs technology to reduce the amount of information sent to the Ethereum blockchain and alleviate blockchain congestion.&nbsp;



It recently launched its StarkNet Alpha 2 scaling solution. As a permissionless validity rollup, or zero-knowledge rollup, StarkNet uses basic compression technology to boost the production and security benefits of Ethereum layer-1 (L1).



According to Kolodny’s partner, Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder and president at StarkWare, the goal is to make blockchain apps as mainstream as smartphone apps. “Anyone who ever built a website can use StarkNet to construct a blockchain app that will be part of the Web3 revolution, pioneering new and exciting uses for blockchain,” Ben-Sasson said.



StarkWare&#8217;s scaling engine, StarkEx, compresses transactions through STARKs before adding them to the Ethereum blockchain network. About half a trillion dollars have been reportedly traded on StarkEx.



For example, gaming company Immutable X, has been using StarkEx to mint its NFTs on Ethereum for the past two years. The StarkEx engine scaled up the throughput and reduced gas costs associated with NFT minting for its Gods Unchained blockchain game.&nbsp;



Immutable X <a href="https://immutablex.medium.com/immutable-starknet-cross-rollup-nft-liquidity-b32df88cda02" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a> on Wednesday that it will integrate building on the StarkNet protocol in order to become a cross-rollup liquidity platform for NFTs. This will enable players to directly trade any asset matched across multiple Ethereum layer-2 and layer-3 rollups, and facilitate projects migrating from L1 smart-contract based games to Immutable instantly. 



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">The biggest games in the world will use Ethereum NFTs. Immutable will let those games build on different rollups tailored to their needs without fragmenting their assets or orders, and with full access to our platform. Next stop: StarkNet. <a href="https://t.co/7TUPQPs82D">https://t.co/7TUPQPs82D</a>&mdash; Alex Connolly (@0xConnolly) <a href="https://twitter.com/0xConnolly/status/1529430344994557953?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 25, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>

Ethereum Layer-2 Developer StarkWare Valued at $8B Following $100M Raise

Michael Bodley

<div id="highlights-block_627d8450aade9" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The move out of active crypto trading doesn’t appear to have had any impact on Tiger’s sizable venture capital investments in blockchain startups</li>
 <li>The firm, in addition to buying bitcoin and ethereum, invested in DeFi protocols in an effort to gain exposure to Web3</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



At long last, a silver lining for Tiger Global.&nbsp;



The blue-chip hedge fund firm has been ravaged this year by punishing equity markets and pummeled by a steep technology-stock rout that contributed to a staggering 44% loss in the first four months of 2022 for founder Chase Coleman’s flagship vehicle.



Tiger, with assets split roughly 50-50 between stocks and venture capital plays, started actively trading cryptocurrencies in recent months, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/exclusive-veteran-blockchain-vc-backer-tiger-global-moves-into-crypto-trading/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Blockworks first reported</a>.&nbsp;



The foray, including building up positions in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Filecoin, as well as bitcoin and ethereum, ended almost as soon as it began, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter.



Those digital asset plays were designed to complement the New York firm’s long-running, and generally successful, bets on private blockchain startups. It appears the firm booked profits on the liquid trades in short order, then cashed out — fortuitously not long before markets tanked to multi-year lows.



“Tiger probably traded like any other TradFi shop,” one source said. “So, if they had made any kind of profit, they took it and [went] risk-off as markets became more exposed to uncertainty.”



Sources were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive business dealings. A spokesperson for the firm declined to comment.&nbsp;



Tiger didn’t sell all its digital asset holdings — and is likely holding onto vanilla cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin and ethereum, in a bet on their upside once markets bounce back — but the firm is out of the market for the most part, sources said.



Though digital assets made up an unspecified, yet relatively tiny, portion of the firm’s book, the risk-off move most likely saved Tiger from the precipitous performance declines suffered by scores of crypto-native and TradFi (traditional finance) traders with digital asset holdings in recent weeks. A good number of such institutional players were arguably over-leveraged and often wiped out by margin calls issued by exchange counterparties.



The retreat, however, doesn’t preclude the shop from starting to trade liquid tokens again down the line. Indeed, Tiger has been leaning on its blockchain venture analysts to research promising liquid investments and has been testing the waters in potential new hires that would focus on pure-play investments in digital assets.



Landing those specialists would be no small feat in a red-hot job market.



But the firm may be under pressure from other hedge fund giants it competes with for institutional limited partners — including the <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/sources-brevan-howard-launches-first-digital-assets-fund-in-massive-crypto-push/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">massive operation</a> Brevan Howard is building out with dozens of incoming staffers, BH Digital — to look to derive alpha from crypto economies that are still relatively inefficient.&nbsp;



Tiger, which was running about $90 billion in February, has lost a whopping $17 billion since, according to calculations by fund of funds Edmond de Rothschild Group. The Tiger spokesperson declined to comment on the firm’s current assets.&nbsp;



The move out of crypto trading hasn’t affected the firm’s venture business. Case in point: Tiger just led a $40 million Series A round for blockchain banking startup BVNK at a $340 million post-money valuation, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/11/bvnk-grabs-40-million-for-its-crypto-banking-services/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">TechCrunch reported</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tiger Global Sidestepped Crypto Rout by Cashing Out When Going Was Good

Ben Strack

<div id="highlights-block_62697aca73bac" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Founded in 2018, Dragonfly has invested more than $700 million overall</li>
 <li>Most US venture capital firms don’t focus enough on crypto projects in Asia, according to a Dragonfly Capital executive</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Dragonfly Capital has launched its third crypto venture fund with $650 million in commitments, earmarking the capital infusion to back later-stage startups as the crypto industry matures.



Those backing the new fund include Tiger Global, KKR, Sequoia China, Invesco, Top Tier Capital Partners and Ivy League endowments. The fund was originally aiming for $500 million in commitments, <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1900344/000190034422000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a regulatory filing</a> shows.



Dragonfly intends to “double down” on its backing of the next breakthroughs in crypto infrastructure, DeFi and smart contract scaling, as well as consumer products, such as NFTs, crypto games and DAOs.



“Our strategy is still early-stage investing, but we&#8217;ll now be able to lead more Series A and Series B rounds as well,” Dragonfly Managing Partner Haseeb Qureshi told Blockworks. “Our goal is to support entrepreneurs in every round from seed to exit.”



The new fund has not yet made any investments.



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/dragonfly-launches-second-vc-fund-with-225-million/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The firm last year launched</a> its second venture capital fund, focused on international decentralized technologies, with $225 million.



Founded in 2018, Dragonfly has invested more than $700 million, including stakes in Avalanche, NEAR Protocol, Compound, MakerDAO, 1inch, Matter Labs, Anchorage and Dune Analytics.



Despite venture dollars flowing into crypto in recent years, Qureshi said the biggest gap in the market right now is investing in Asia.



“Dragonfly has been global from day one, so we have deep roots in Asia,” he said, adding that the firm was an early backer of Amber Group, Babel Finance, Matrixport and Bybit. “We believe that it&#8217;s a hugely important part of the market that&#8217;s neglected by most of the US [venture capital firms].”



Amber Group reached a $3 billion valuation with <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-trading-platform-amber-group-eclipses-3b-valuation-with-latest-raise/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">its fundraise in February</a>, while Matrixport <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/matrixport-raises-100m-and-hits-unicorn-status-with-1b-valuation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hit a $1 billion valuation</a> last year.



Bybit, which recently moved its headquarters from Singapore to Dubai, unveiled crypto options trading this week. CEO Ben Zhou said the firm is confident that the new offering will help normalize crypto options trading, “just like what Robinhood did for stock options.”



Qureshi declined to comment about potential future fund plans.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Dragonfly Capital’s Latest Crypto Fund Aims to Invest From ‘Seed to Exit’

Casey Wagner

<div id="highlights-block_624dc87784979" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>NEAR protocol announced its second fundraise since January</li>
 <li>The capital will be used to expand regional hubs around the world, the protocol said</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Blockchain project NEAR Protocol has announced the close of another funding round.



Just three months after its <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/near-token-spikes-after-protocol-raises-150m-led-by-three-arrows-capital/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$150 million raise</a>, NEAR announced an additional $350 million capital raise Wednesday, bringing its market cap to more than <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/near" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$10 billion</a> as of Wednesday.



The funding round, led by Tiger Global, will be put toward growing regional hubs in key community centers across the globe, according to a statement.



“NEAR is poised to be a leading smart contract blockchain platform, combining first-rate technology with a fast-growing developer ecosystem,” partner at Tiger Global John Curtius said in a statement.



The protocol has established communities in Asia, Africa and Europe, and it aims to expand support in emerging communities in Latin America, Turkey and India, the company said.



Since its mainnet launch in late 2020, the NEAR network has processed over 70 million transactions and supported over 2.3 million accounts. Its Ethereum-compatible <a href="https://aurora.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Aurora</a> scaling solution is responsible for $800 million of Near’s $1.1 billion in total value locked (TVL), <a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Aurora" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to DefiLlama</a>.



After its January raise, the protocol’s native token, NEAR, jumped nearly 10% to trade just under $20 before falling to around $15 in recent weeks. It was trading down about 3% Wednesday afternoon.



NEAR, which seeks to rival layer-1 protocols including Solana and Ethereum and claims to be the first truly <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sharding.asp" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sharded</a> network in the world, also recently <a href="https://near.org/blog/near-in-march-unchain-fund-sailgp-and-daos/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a> a series of decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) partnerships, including being selected by Orange DAO as its preferred layer-1 blockchain for Web3.



“We are thrilled to have been selected by some of the brightest minds in the world as the preferred layer-1 chain on which Orange DAO members will want to build,” Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation, said in a statement. “We know that community-driven innovation benefits everyone, and this partnership is simply another example of our mission in practice.”



Illia Polosukhin, NEAR’s Ukrainian co-founder, is also a key player in the cryptocurrency community working to help efforts in Ukraine. He has helped evacuate at least 50 people out of Ukraine and raised more than $3 million, according to a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-09/ukraine-s-crypto-community-sends-donation-support-after-russia-invasion" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bloomberg</a> report.



Other investors in the latest round include FTX Ventures, Dragonfly Capital and Blockchain Ventures.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

NEAR Raises $350M To Bring Market Cap Over $10B

<div id="highlights-block_61fc2da20eb8b" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Tiger has traded decentralized finance protocols, including Filecoin</li>
 <li>The firm, founded in 2001, invests in both public and private companies</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Tiger Global, long known for making winning bets on private blockchain startups, has for the first time started to actively trade cryptocurrencies, according to two people familiar with the matter.



One of the world’s largest and oldest hedge fund firms, Tiger joins a growing number of top asset managers on the hunt for alpha in crypto’s inefficient markets. The firm started trading crypto in recent months, the sources said.



Sources were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive business dealings. A representative for Tiger, which has $90 billion of assets under management across its hedge funds and venture capital vehicles, declined to comment.



Given the success of Tiger’s private crypto plays, trading liquid tokens could be a big area of growth for the New York-based firm down the line. Indications are that Tiger has trodden lightly in the space as its institutional limited partners — including some of the largest pension funds and endowments — are only slowly warming up to digital assets as a core position in their portfolios.



“Tiger doesn’t rush into things, but I’m honestly surprised they didn’t make the move earlier,” one source said. “They definitely have the connections to understand the space from their private business. It’s just a matter of bringing on the right people for trading.”



It is not clear whether Tiger is dabbling in digital assets via its flagship fund or whether the firm has considered setting up vehicles to trade crypto outright. The latter stance would bring Tiger in line with peers including Brevan Howard, which Blockworks previously reported is <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/sources-brevan-howard-launches-first-digital-assets-fund-in-massive-crypto-push/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">poised to raise hundreds of millions of dollars</a> for its first crypto fund.



The flagship fund of Tiger, run by founder Chase Coleman, focuses on making fundamental, long and short wagers on stocks.



In addition to exploring well-known cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether, Tiger has invested in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, including Filecoin, as the firm delves into the investment prospects of Web3, sources said.



Filecoin — which has a market capitalization of just $3 billion, according to Coingecko — issues tokens to users who provide storage space for the network. Its aim is to assemble an array of data, including Creative Commons assets and historical records, that is indexable and searchable via blockchain technology.



Tiger has backed dozens of crypto startups, including <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/blockdaemon/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Blockdaemon</a>, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/blockfi-closes-350m-series-d-round/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BlockFi</a>, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/ftx-valued-at-32-billion/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">FTX</a>, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/billionaire-alan-howard-tiger-global-invest-in-20m-funding-round-for-livepeer/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Livepeer</a>, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/moonpay-marshals-555m-in-series-a-funding-round/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Moonpay</a> and <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/trm-labs-lands-60-million-series-b-round/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">TRM Labs.</a>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Exclusive: Veteran Blockchain VC Backer Tiger Global Moves Into Crypto Trading

Jacquelyn Melinek

<div id="highlights-block_61eb19aec0b8b" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>If Google is the organizer and indexer of the internet, The Graph aims to be the blockchain equivalent with Web3 data </li>
 <li>“We expect to see an exponential increase in the data being stored on blockchains, especially given the pace at which the trillion dollar market has been growing over the past year,” Tiger Global Partner John Curtius said in a statement</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The foundation behind The Graph protocol has raised $50 million in a round led by Tiger Global.&nbsp;



The funds will be deployed over the next two years to onboard the next wave of users, contributors and developers, The Graph Foundation said Friday.&nbsp;



Eva Beylin, director of The Graph Foundation, said in an email to Blockworks that the foundation plans to bring on five more core developers to continue what the group calls its “decentralized M&amp;A strategy.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



“The $50M raise gives The Graph Foundation the resources needed to attract core developers to help build out the next components on The Graph&#8217;s roadmap, which focuses on solving key centralization, security, and scalability challenges in Web3,” Beylin said.&nbsp;



The foundation previously disbursed $250 million to network developers.&nbsp;



The raise included investors from FinTech Collective, Fenbushi Capital, Reciprocal Ventures, and Blockwall Digital Assets Fund. Last month, The Graph Foundation gave Semiotic AI a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/semiotic-ai-receives-60m-grant-to-develop-the-graphs-ecosystem/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$60 million grant</a> to develop on its ecosystem.&nbsp;



The Graph aims to do for Web3 and blockchains — it supports 26 protocols — what Google does for the internet: index reams of data in a searchable way.&nbsp;



Supported blockchains include Ethereum, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/near-token-spikes-after-protocol-raises-150m-led-by-three-arrows-capital/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NEAR</a>, Arbitrium, Optimism, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/opensea-polygon-nft-sales-on-track-to-hit-2-2m-by-end-of-january/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Polygon</a>, Avalanche, Celo and Fantom. To date, over 25,000 developers have built subgraphs for applications such as Uniswap, Synthetic, Livepeer and Decentraland.



At its core, The Graph is an index layer for the blockchain that is divided into subgraphs, or open APIs built upon the programming language GraphQL. The subgraphs, in turn, fetch blockchain data through a decentralized network. The end results favor decentralized applications that don’t rely on single servers that are prone to failure. 



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tiger Global Leads $50M Round for Web3 Protocol

Macauley Peterson

<div id="highlights-block_61afc985294b3" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Tiger Global led a funding round with participation the venture capital arm of American Express, Visa, Citigroup, along with DRW Venture Capital, Jump Capital, Marshall Wace, Block (formerly Square, Inc.) and PayPal Ventures.</li>
 <li>TRM Transaction Monitoring is used by major crypto firms like FTX US, Circle and MoonPay to detect suspicious activity and comply with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



San Francisco-based TRM Labs announced today its Series B raise of $60 million. Born from the famed <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Y Combinator</a> incubator program in 2019, TRM has grown its team to a headcount of 60, while revenue is up 600% year-over-year.



The company works with financial institutions, cryptocurrency-focused companies, and public sector agencies on issues of fraud and financial crime. Its toolkit includes services for monitoring and screening cryptocurrency wallets and transactions, to help companies manage risk and comply with regulations.



Tiger Global, helmed by billionaire Chase Coleman, led the funding round. &#8220;TRM is well-positioned to lead the industry as the premier blockchain intelligence solution,&#8221; said Tiger Global’s John Curtius, in a statement.



Block, which recently <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/jack-dorseys-square-to-change-its-name-to-block/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">changed its name</a> from Square Inc., was among the participants in the Series B. Mike Brock, who leads Block’s TBD division, noted of TRM Labs’ business, that “risk and compliance is a crucial piece of the puzzle as financial institutions, blockchain-based businesses, and government entities look to bring crypto into the world of finance.”



Multiple other venture firms and prominent individual investors participated in the round. Venture capital funding came from B Capital Group, Bessemer Venture Partners, Blockchain Capital, Cap Table Coalition, Castle Island Ventures, Initialized Capital, Operator Partners. Among 50 individual investors were Emilie Choi, President and COO of Coinbase, Frank Slootman, Chairman and CEO of Snowflake along with Snowflake’s CFO Michael Scarpelli.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>
Get the day’s top crypto news and insights delivered to your inbox every evening.&nbsp;<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/newsletter/?source=end" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Subscribe to Blockworks’ free newsletter</a>&nbsp;now.
<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>

TRM Labs Lands $60 Million Series B Round

<div id="highlights-block_61a6e0f282d0f" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Investors that participated in the round include Tiger Global, Coatue Management, and GL Ventures’ Hillhouse Capital’s VC arm </li>
 <li>This capital raise is the third round of funding for CertiK within the past four months, bringing its total amount raised to over $140 million</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Blockchain security firm CertiK has closed an $80 million raise led by Sequoia, bringing its valuation near $1 billion. The funding will be used for the development and operation of more innovative products.



Investors that participated in the round include Tiger Global, Coatue Management, and GL Ventures’ Hillhouse Capital’s VC arm. This capital raise is the third round of funding for CertiK within the past four months, bringing its total amount raised to over $140 million.



“The reason we raised this round was majorly due to rapid growth that we have made in the past year,” Ronghui Gu, CEO and co-founder of CertiK said in an interview with Blockworks. “We have had revenue growth of about 20 times and our team has grown four times, so we are moving really fast,” Gu said.&nbsp;



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="512" height="345" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/CertiK.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-11977" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/CertiK.jpeg?w=512 512w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/CertiK.jpeg?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/CertiK.jpeg?w=381 381w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/CertiK.jpeg?w=387 387w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/CertiK.jpeg?w=325 325w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/CertiK.jpeg?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px" /><figcaption>CertiK co-founders Ronghui Gu (left) and Zhong Shao.</figcaption></figure></div>



The New York-based firm provides <a href="https://www.certik.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">security</a> products and services to over 1,800 clients, and its monitoring system Skynet has checked more than $4 billion asset transfers, $3 billion transactions and 4 million accounts in the past year, Gu said. 



“Last year, the total assets lost due to software error was about $50 million. This year, so far, we have lost about $130 million, so that number almost tripled in less than a year,” Gu said.&nbsp;



CertiK hopes to develop products such as scammer alerts and token protection — currently, things that are missing from the blockchain security ecosystem, Gu said. “The entire blockchain is about trust but the current system is not trustworthy,” he said. “That’s the challenge we aim to address. How can we bring trust back to the community beyond smart contracts, auditing and how can we provide more security products and one-stop products to help bring the trust back to the community?” he added. 



In 2022, CertiK will focus on non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse as demand for those two divisions in the crypto industry has increased in the past year, Gu said.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Get the day’s top crypto news and insights delivered to your inbox every evening. <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/newsletter/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Subscribe to Blockworks’ free newsletter</a> now.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>

CertiK Closes $80M Round Led by Sequoia, Nearing $1B Valuation

Morgan Chittum

<div id="highlights-block_619bd8a66a9be" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>This is the largest Series A funding round for any crypto company, MoonPay said in a blogpost on Monday</li>
 <li>Other participants in the financing round include Paradigm, Blossom Capital, Thrive Capital and NEA</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



MoonPay, a cryptocurrency payment services provider, raised a whopping $555 million in Series A funding, the company announced on Monday. This brings the Miami-based startup to a post-money valuation of $3.4 billion, according to a press release. 



The fresh capital will go towards expanding staff, scaling up MoonPay’s crypto payment solutions and its efforts to drive mainstream adoption of the digital asset class at-large, according to co-founder and CEO Ivan Soto-Wright. 



&#8220;The raise will provide the funds to continue with our aggressive growth ambitions in markets around the world to support our core goal of giving the next one billion people access to cryptocurrency by 2030,&#8221; Soto-Wright told Blockworks. &#8220;With this fundraise, we will also grow our world-class team and support an expanding number of innovations in the crypto economy for our partners, creators and users.&#8221;



Led by Tiger Global Management and Coatue, other participants in the financing round include Paradigm, Blossom Capital, Thrive Capital and NEA. This is the largest Series A funding round for any crypto company globally, MoonPay said in a <a href="https://www.moonpay.com/blog/funding-round" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blogpost</a>.



&#8220;Crypto is growing rapidly, but bringing aboard the next billion people requires services that make it even easier to access,” Matt Huang, co-founder of Paradigm, said in a statement. “MoonPay has built a simple and secure way for people globally to participate in this new economy.&#8221;



MoonPay allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using bank cards and mobile wallets. The company made <a href="https://www.moonpay.com/blog/post-malone" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">headlines</a> earlier this month for its feature on artists Post Malone and The Weeknd’s music video. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc0tLGWIqxA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“One Right Now”</a> has racked up over 12 million views and features Malone buying a non-fungible token (NFT) via MoonPay’s platform. (Malone owns two Bored Apes, which he purchased for a combined $734,401 or 160 ether.)&nbsp;



Founded in 2019, the company has onboarded a slew of other celebrities into the crypto world, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K20WJixuLV0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jimmy Fallon</a>. Fallon announced that he used the startup’s services to buy his first NFT, describing “MoonPay [as] PayPal, but for crypto.” 



“This historic financing round is a vote of confidence for what we’re doing and where we’re headed next. It’s proof that people believe in our ability to bring the next billion people to crypto, a way station to our final destination: the moon,”<a href="https://www.moonpay.com/blog/funding-round" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> Soto-Wright</a> said.



MoonPay has processed more than $2 billion in transactions and accumulated over 7 million users.



<hr class="wp-block-separator">
Get the day’s top crypto news and insights delivered to your inbox every evening.&nbsp;<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/newsletter/?source=end" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Subscribe to Blockworks’ free newsletter</a>&nbsp;now.
<hr class="wp-block-separator">