VC monthly report: the number of financing increased slightly in April

Author: WuBlockchain

According to RootData statistics, there were 101 publicly disclosed crypto VC investment projects in April, an 11% increase from the previous month (91 projects in March 2023) and a 45% decrease year-on-year (184 projects in April 2022). Note: Since not all financings are announced in the same month, the above statistics may increase in the future. The industry’s primary classifications are as follows:

In April’s crypto market, infrastructure projects accounted for about 30% of financing, DeFi 15%, CeFi 7%, and NFT/GameFi 21%.

The total amount of financing in April was $790 million, a 1% increase from the previous month (March 2023, $780 million) and a 78% decrease year-on-year (April 2022, $3.61 billion). Rounds over $20 million include:

LayerZero raised $120 million in a Series B round, valued at $3 billion, with 33 investors including a16z Crypto, Sequoia Capital, Circle Ventures, Samsung Next, OpenSea, and Christie’s. Previously, LayerZero completed a $135 million Series A round in March 2022, led by a16z Crypto, Sequoia Capital, and FTX Ventures. Currently, LayerZero has launched on zkSync Era, and in April, it completed 5.45 million transactions, a monthly increase of approximately 810%, with an average of 187,000 transactions per day. About 1.22 million addresses have traded with the LayerZero protocol, 59.7% of which completed only 1–5 transactions, and 70% had a single active month.

Financial services company Unchained Capital raised $60 million in a Series B round, led by Valor Equity Partners, with participation from NYDIG. The funds will be used to expand the customer base, improve existing product suites, and expand product offerings. Unchained’s services include collaborative custody solutions, bitcoin-backed loans, and trading platforms.

EOS Network received a $60 million investment from Web3 market maker DWF Labs. The two parties have signed a $45 million EOS Token purchase agreement and a $15 million investment commitment. EOS Network launched the EOS Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) on April 14.

Public chain Sei raised $30 million at an $800 million valuation, with participation from Jump Capital and Multicoin Capital. Sei is still in the public testnet phase and may launch its mainnet in the second quarter. Previously, Sei raised $5 million in seed funding in August 2022.

Non-custodial staking provider P2P.org completed a $23 million Series A round, with participation from Jump Crypto and Bybit. Founded in 2018, P2P.org provides staking infrastructure for Ethereum and blockchain applications such as Cosmos and Cardano. The newly raised funds will be used to expand its portfolio to include more public chains, such as Celestia, Sui, and Aleo.

DeFi platform M^ZERO raised $22.5 million in a seed round, led by Pantera Capital and participated by Road Capital. CEO Prosperi said M^ZERO aims to facilitate institutional value transfer and create a neutral infrastructure for payment flows. M^ZERO may have a governance token, but its initial distribution may target large institutions rather than the general public; the infrastructure will use an open architecture and may serve as a connector for some existing DeFi platforms.

iZUMi Finance, a multi-chain DeFi protocol providing one-stop Liquidity as a Service (LaaS), raised $22 million on the Solv V3 token issuance platform. The investment will be used by iZUMi Finance to support early liquidity for its on-chain order book DEX product, iZiSwap Pro, on the zkSync Era network.

Swedish football game development company Goals announced the completion of a $20 million Series A round, led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six, with participation from Northzone, Moonfire, and Cassius, bringing the company’s total funding to date to $39 million. The new investment will be used to increase the number of employees from 50 to 75 and accelerate the development of the game, which is currently in testing.