25 projects raise $1.5 billion Hidden Road receives $1.3 billion in financing

Compiled by: Golden Finance

During this week, 25 blockchain startups raised a total of $1.5 billion in funding.

The biggest round of financing this week

Hidden Road raised $1.3 billion from Ripple in a merger round.

Hidden Road is a global credit network that provides institutional-level main brokerage, self-clearing and financing services to traditional asset and digital asset markets. As a non-conflict of interest counterparty, Hidden Road ensures neutrality between clients, custodians and trading venues. The platform provides real-time risk management and achieves seamless access to various products and asset classes, relying on a solid capital foundation and independent research and development infrastructure. Hidden Road recently launched its fixed income master brokerage platform to further provide repurchase and global financing services. The company also obtained a MiCAR license in the Netherlands, enabling it to conduct digital asset services in compliance across the European Economic Area.

Pre-Seed and seed round investment

Sats Terminal raised $1.7 million in a Pre-seed round of funding, with investors including Coinbase Ventures*, Draper Associates*, Draper Dragon, BitcoinFi, UTXO Management, Core Ventures, Sats Ventures, Delta Blockchain Fund, Tenzor Capital, 3Commas Capital, MH Ventures, domo, Paul Taylor, Franklin Bi and Danish Chaudhry.

Sats Terminal is a Bitcoin DeFi aggregation protocol designed to simplify users' access to decentralized financial services on the Bitcoin network. The platform integrates decentralized transaction (DEX) services, cross-chain bridging solutions and income aggregation functions to provide users with a unified entrance and improve liquidity and user experience.

Octane Security raised $6.8 million in a seed round, with investors including Archetype*, Winklevoss Capital*, Druid Ventures, Circle, Gemini Frontier Fund, Legion Capital, Duke Capital Partners, Balaji Srinivasan and Sina Habibian.

Octane is an AI-powered network security platform that focuses on continuous, real-time vulnerability analysis of blockchain smart contracts, detecting and fixing security risks before deployment. By seamlessly integrating developers' CI/CD processes, Octane accelerates the release of security code while reducing reliance on traditional audits.

Firefish raised $1.8 million in a seed round, with investors including MitonC Fund and Braiins.

Firefish is an open lending market that focuses on Bitcoin mortgage loans, directly connecting borrowers and investors without intermediaries. Borrowers can use Bitcoin as collateral to obtain fiat or stablecoin loans without selling assets. Investors provide funds for these loans and earn fixed interest, which are guaranteed by excess Bitcoin. The platform is based on a point-to-point structure and ensures the transparency and security of transactions through an on-chain custody system.

Lyzi raised $1.4 million in a seed round, with investors including Tezos Foundation, NYX Ventures, Christopher Grilhault des Fontaines and Jean-Luc Bernard.

Lyzi is a crypto payment platform headquartered in France. It is built on the Tezos blockchain and supports online and offline payments using more than 21 cryptocurrencies. Consumers can pay in cryptocurrency, while merchants directly receive fiat currency in their bank account. The platform supports instant euro settlement, POS integration, and has compliance functions, committed to connecting the world of daily consumption and digital assets.

Cap Labs raised $8 million in a seed round, with investors including Franklin Templeton*, Triton Capital*, GSR Markets LTD, Flow Traders, Laser Digital, IMC, RockawayX, Superscrypt, CMCC Global, Selini Capital, Caladan, Paper Ventures, Presto Labs, Fasanara Capital, Auros Global, Breed VC, Curved Ventures, Nonce Classic, Flowdesk and Spencer Noon.

CAP Labs is a DeFi protocol that provides a stablecoin mechanism designed to create high and sustainable returns. The platform focuses on improving capital efficiency and is committed to providing decentralized returns that cannot be achieved by traditional finance. By integrating advanced DeFi strategies, CAP Labs maximizes the profit potential and accessibility of stablecoins.

Libraro raised $1.3 million in a seed round, investing in Ayre Ventures.

Libraro is a Web3-based content creation platform that provides authors, readers and publishers with a decentralized space to connect, discover and share stories. The platform ensures the author's control over the work, readers can explore diverse topics, and publishers can discover emerging talents. Copyright protection through blockchain, Libraro promotes in-depth interaction between authors and community audiences, bringing new opportunities for security and collaboration to digital publishing.

Other financing rounds

LiveArt received an undisclosed amount of investment from Jets Capital in a round of financing.

LiveArt is a global platform that uses AI and blockchain technology to make it easier for the public to enter the art and luxury market with a total value of $2 trillion. The platform provides tokenized, fragmented ownership of real- world art assets (RWA) and data-based market insights, empowering collectors, investors and artists in the Web3 ecosystem.

BugsCoin raised $12 million in Series A financing, with investors including Becker Ventures, Castrum Capital, BullPerks, The DuckDao and Maxx Capital Official.

BugsCoin is a digital token that transforms points into tradable assets by introducing blockchain technology to innovate traditional points systems. This token is used as a reward mechanism for platforms such as AntTalk. This is a virtual investment community that enhances user participation through transparent and fair reward accumulation.

OpenZK raised $6 million in a round of funding, with investors including Animoca Brands and Coinstore Labs.

OpenZK is a Layer 2 network built on ZK Rollup technology, aiming to improve the scalability and efficiency of Ethereum. The platform uniquely integrates native ETH staking, mobile re-staking and stablecoin staking, providing users with multiple income channels. Its dual Gas mechanism supports users to use ETH or platform tokens to pay transaction fees, improving flexibility and user experience.

APX Lending raised $20 million in a round of funding, investing in Cypress Hills.

APX Lending is a Canadian-based crypto mortgage platform that allows individuals and institutions to borrow without selling Bitcoin or Ethereum. The platform has been registered with FINTRAC in Canada and FinCEN in the United States, providing personal and corporate loans, with a loan value ratio of up to 60%, an interest rate starting at 13.99%, and a repayment period ranging from 3 to 60 months. APX also provides white-label SaaS solutions for financial institutions to integrate crypto mortgage services.

Meanwhile raised $40 million in Series A financing, with investors including Framework Ventures*, Fulgur Ventures* and Wences Casares.

Meanwhile is a life insurance company denominated in Bitcoin (BTC), providing policyholders with a tax advantage to inherit Bitcoin wealth. Its policy has advantages in value preservation gain, liquidity options and generational wealth transfer, and is committed to introducing innovative solutions to digital currencies in the insurance industry.

Mind Network raised $750,000 in a public sale round.

Mind Network is a decentralized platform that uses adaptive full homomorphic encryption (FHE) technology to protect user data, smart contracts and AI security in Web3 environments. The platform launches a zero-trust data lake, implementing end-to-end encryption of secure storage, computing and access control, and improving data privacy and availability in the Web3 ecosystem.

Towns Protocol raised $10 million in Series B financing, with investors including a16z crypto*, Coinbase Ventures and Benchmark.

Towns is a decentralized communications protocol and application designed to empower communities to build, own and govern their digital public spaces. This protocol utilizes Ethereum smart contracts to provide end-to-end encrypted messages, decentralized storage on distributed streaming nodes, and programmable space to achieve custom functions of access, profit and governance. The community can sell exclusive group access rights, fully control data, and create an untampered membership system on the chain.

Gunzilla Games received an undisclosed amount of investment from 1kx in a round of financing.

Gunzilla Games is a game development studio known for its innovation in the multiplayer field. It is developing "Off The Grid", a Battle Royale 2.0 game set in the world of cyberpunk dystopia. Through the GunZ platform, Gunzilla gives players ownership of in-game assets and can use blockchain technology to trade items.

DashFun received undisclosed investments from Metalpha, HTX Ventures (formerly Huobi Ventures), tbv, Neo Ledger Capital and Fides Capital Group Limited in a round of financing.

DashFun is a Web3 gaming platform that combines AI-powered game development with blockchain technology to provide more than 200 games accessible through Telegram MiniApps. The platform supports credit card payment and wallet-free access, lowers the threshold for Web2 players, and establishes a sustainable token economic system through its native Dash Token, supporting cross-game NFT interoperability and social and competitive mechanisms such as guild battles and PVP rankings.

Slingshot received an undisclosed amount of investment from MagicEden in a merger round.

Slingshot is a decentralized, non-custodial trading platform that enables users to exchange millions of cryptocurrencies and tokens between multiple blockchains such as Solana, Ethereum, Base and Avalanche. Its mobile app supports instant redemption, real-time price charts, and supports a variety of payment methods including credit cards, PayPal and encrypted transfers.

Wunder Social raised $50 million in a round of financing, investing in Rollman Management Digital*.

Wunder is a SocialFi platform that integrates Web3 technology with Web2 user experience to create a real and robot-free social environment. The platform prevents content theft and data abuse by verifying identity and blockchain- casting digital assets. Wunder shares advertising revenue with users and supports tokenization of real-world assets (RWA), helping creators realize their earnings and funding the charity causes they care about.

Solix DePIN raised $29.5 million in a round of financing, investing by Eclip Foundation*.

Solix is ​​a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN), where users can monetize unused network bandwidth through browser plug-ins to earn SLIX points. Solix adopts its proprietary Model Context Protocol (MCP) to utilize AI-driven optimization to achieve dynamic bandwidth allocation and improve sharing efficiency without affecting user experience.

Blackbird raised $50 million in Series B financing, with investors including Spark Capital*, Coinbase Ventures, a16z crypto, Union Square Ventures (USV) and American Express Ventures (Amex).

Blackbird is a restaurant discovery and reward platform where users can explore restaurants, book seats and earn rewards through meals. The platform provides planned restaurant lists, reviews, online booking functions, and rewards users with cashbacks, which can be used for next meals or other benefits redemption.

Plume Network received an undisclosed amount of investment from Apollo Global Management in a round of financing.

Plume Network is a public chain focusing on RWA expansion, providing full- stack infrastructure for compliance deployment of various assets. The platform supports income acquisition, lending, trading and leverage operations, and integrates compliance mechanisms such as KYC and AML. It is currently in the private beta stage, and more than 80 RWA and DeFi projects have been built on their network. Plume uses Arbitrum Orbit as the foundation of the EVM chain and enables data availability through Celestia, ensuring fast transactions and low fees.

DecentralGPT raised $3 million in Series A financing, with investors including AGICrypto Capital*, Cherry Ventures, DePIN X, Aethir and BTR Capital.

DecentralGPT is a decentralized large language model (LLM) inference network that supports a variety of open source and closed source models. The platform utilizes a globally distributed network of GPU nodes to improve computing efficiency and reduce operational costs, while processing data locally to protect user privacy. Its decentralized architecture promotes democratized access to AGI resources and allows global users to participate in AI development and innovation. DecentralGPT also integrates DeepBrain Chain's distributed computing infrastructure to provide high-performance, low-cost, and privacy-safe AI inference services.

MetaEra received undisclosed investments in Series A, including Fenbushi Capital*, Amber Group, Solowin, FOMO Ventures and Klickl Labs.

MetaEra is a Hong Kong-based Web3 resource aggregation platform dedicated to providing a one-stop service for blockchain and meta-universe explorers. The company focuses on providing professional, comprehensive and trustworthy information and data support to the Web3 community.

FastLane Labs received an undisclosed amount of investment from Jets Capital in a round of financing.

FastLane is a hybrid Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) protocol designed to improve the health and efficiency of blockchain networks, and optimize by reducing transaction junk and increasing validator rewards. The protocol was originally implemented on the Polygon network, providing an auction system that allows validators to gain additional benefits without sending spam transactions. Its system distributes the proceeds to participating validators by monetizing the bottleneck of P2P network propagation.

Flashy Finance (formerly Life DeFi) received an undisclosed amount of investment from Quantum Fintech Group in a round of financing.

Flashy Finance is a DeFi platform reshaped by Life DeFi and Flashy Cash, providing complete decentralized financial services including pledge, lending, token exchange, securities tokenization and fiat currency entry and exit channels. The platform supports more than 100 assets, runs across multiple blockchains, and integrates gamified user experience, mobile phone recharge and gift cards and other functions. As the only fiat currency gateway of the Lif3 blockchain, Flashy connects traditional finance with Web3 and provides DeFi infrastructure as a service for applications, games and social platforms. At the same time, the platform also operates verification nodes on Lif3 to strengthen its role in the ecosystem.