a16z raised $4.5 billion for Crypto Fund 4, Starkware and its Series D

Overview of investment & funding activities on week 20

In the TOP 10 most famous investments & sponsorship deals in the past week, we have:

• 2 projects about Web 3 gaming: FreshCut, Azra Games
• 1 Investment Fund: a16z
• 1 AMM exchange: Chainflip
• 1 Blockchain/L2 project: StarkWare
• 1 infrastructure project: Certora
• 1 wallet: BitKeep
• 3 others: Babel Finance, DoraHacks and Questbook

Company and Venture Capital fundraisings

a16z announced a fund package worth $4.5 B

What is a16z?

a16z, aka Andreessen Horowitz, is an investment fund founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. This investment fund operates in Silicon Valley, California and focuses on investing in technology startups, the Fund is also a big market maker.

a16z is well known for its early investments in billion-dollar companies like Lyft, Pinterest or Slack. The first time a16z made a big investment in the crypto market was in Coinbase in 2013. On Wednesday this week, a16z announced a huge fund called “Crypto Fund 4”, worth $4.5B.

Purpose of Crypto Fund 4:

This is a16z's 4th crypto-focused fund 4 years after their first crypto-focused fund package. Crypto Fund 4 will be split into 2 parts, $1.5 B for seed projects and $3 B for venture rounds. This is one of the largest fund packages in the world. It marks Andreessen’s fourth fund for the asset class and brings its total raised for crypto and blockchain investments to $7.6 billion.

Projects with Tokens

Projects already have Tokens and still receive additional investments proves that they have new products, new segments, and need more money to develop. This news will greatly affect the nature and price of the tokens, so please refer to it for more investment perspectives.

FreshCut (FCD) raised $15 M

What is FreshCut?

FreshCut is a platform that bridges traditional gaming to the Web3. Similar to TikTok, FreshCut allows gamers to share great gaming moments. From there, viewers or fans can reward their favorite creators via FCD tokens. FreshCut has also attracted many famous creators to their platform such as JellyFish, ToastysBakery or the esport team called Faze Clan.

Famous Investment Fund participating in the funding round:

• Animoca Brands: The leader in the blockchain gaming market. As a publisher for big, familiar games on blockchain such as REVV Racing, The Sandbox. Animoca Brands also regularly pours large capital into blockchain entertainment startups.
• Hashed : A preeminent Blockchain investment company founded in 2017, from Seoul, Korea with a portfolio spanning the globe.

Goals after the funding round: The capital will help FreshCut find more partners in the field of Web 3 Gaming. Currently, FreshCut has cooperated with titles and content creators in the field of Web3 Gaming such as Brycent, Chief Pat, Mystic7. FreshCut also just launched a $1 M incentive package as Creator Fund.

Chainflip (FLIP) raise $10 M

Goals after the funding round: 

Chainflip is a cross-chain AMM crypto exchange. Chainflip allows users to directly swap tokens across blockchains without using any wallets, collateral and especially without a third party. The main goal of the project is to remove all kinds of barriers so that users can easily swap tokens without requiring much in-depth knowledge of the market.

Famous Investment Fund participating in the funding round:

• Framework Ventures: Bringing together a group of technologists, researchers and investors in Crypto, Framework not only searches and invests in Crypto projects but also participates in building products and services to support these networks.
• Pantera Capital: A famous investment fund led by Dan Morehead. Pantera has invested in more than 80 large and small blockchain companies and 65 seed-stage projects. Pantera has invested in many famous companies and projects such as Circle, Coinbase, Ripple.

Goals after the funding round: The capital will be used by Chainflip to upgrade and develop the infrastructure for the project. It is expected that Chainflip will have an IDO this year.

Projects without tokens

Projects that do not have Tokens and are invested in may be able to develop and build their basic foundations.

For the project itself, the supporters in this phase are very meaningful to them, so the list below may not help you in investing, but it helps in choosing potential projects to learn about. You can look for opportunities such as participating in Testnets, IDOs,...

Starkware raised $100 M in Series D

What is Starkware?

Starkware (aka Starkware Industries) is a company founded in January 2018 by Eli Ben-Sasson - Co-Founder of STARK & ZCash. StarkWare helps improve the scalability and privacy of blockchains by using STARK technology to deploy and verify zero-knowledge proofs.

Famous Investment Fund participating in the funding round:

• Coatue: A technology-focused investment management fund led by Philippe Laffont. Coatue invests in public and private markets, focusing on technology, media, telecommunications, consumer and healthcare sectors.
• Tiger Global Management: An American investment company. The Fund mainly focuses on the Internet technology, software, consumer and financial industries.

Goals after the funding round: The main purpose of the funding round was to attract more key players to Starkware. In addition, Starkware will use the funds to upgrade and improve the infrastructure for StarkWare and the ecosystem around it.

Babel Finance raised $80 M in Series B

What is Babel Finance?

Babel Finance is one of China's major financial institutions. Babel Finance provides companies and businesses with loans in the form of cryptocurrency (BTC, ETH, stables,...). The loans offered by Babel Finance have amounted to 10 billion dollars, including assets in the crypto market, derivatives, options,…

Famous Investment Fund participating in the funding round:

• Generation Capital: Hong Kong's investment fund. The Fund mainly invests in projects in the field of technology. Founded by Jimmy Chang, the Fund has invested more than 20 times in technology companies, large and small around the world.
• Dragonfly Capital: A cryptocurrency Investment Fund established in 2018. Created with the goal of bringing together leading projects in the decentralized economy, investing and supporting project construction, bringing the best project for the Dragonfly Capital ecosystem.
• Circle Ventures: The venture capital fund of Circle company, founder of Metamask wallet and USDC stablecoin.

Goals after the funding round: The capital will be used for Babel Finance to expand its business activities globally. After the Series B funding round, Babel Finance's value has reached $2B, becoming the newest unicorn of the market.

Certora raises $36 M in Series B

What is Certora?

Certora is a software that helps to secure and strengthen smart contracts. One of Certora's unique technologies is Certora Prover (AEV - auto-accurate verification). Certora has provided many Web3/Crypto projects with security capabilities, preventing hackers from taking advantage of vulnerabilities to attack in recent times. According to Certora, they have helped protect almost $50B worth of assets.

Famous Investment Fund participating in the funding round:

• Jump Crypto: The crypto-market investment arm of Jump Trading Group. Jump Trading Group is a long-standing investment company, with more than 700 employees in many territories such as the US, China, UK, Singapore, ..
• Tiger Global Management: An American investment company. The Fund mainly focuses on the Internet technology, software, consumer and financial industries.

Goals after the funding round: The capital will help Certora expand and develop. Currently, Certora only supports EVM-compatible blockchains. In the near future, Certora will add support to Solana, and then Polkadot.

DoraHacks raises $20 M in Series B1

What is DoraHacks?

DoraHacks is a global hackathon organizer and one of the most active web3 developer communities in the world.It helps developers around the world raise capital for startups. Currently, DoraHacks has successfully supported more than $16 M for startups on its platform.

Famous Investment Fund participating in the funding round:

• Liberty City Ventures: Venture capital company founded in 2012 by Andrew Chang and Dorothy Jean Chang. The company focuses on investments in areas such as technology, telecommunications, advertising and entertainment.
• Crypto.com Capital: The investment arm of the crypto exchange Crypto.com.
• Amber Group: A legal support company for famous crypto projects in Hong Kong.

Goals after the funding round: The funds will be used to establish the Dora Grant DAO and the Dora Infinite Fund, a venture fund for the NFT section.

Azra Games raises $15 M in seed round

What is Azra Games?

Azra Games is a blockchain game publisher. Azra Games is led by Mr. Mark Otero, former General Manager of billion-dollar game company EA Capital Games. The Azra Games development team is the same team that created Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, which has made over $1B in revenue for EA. Over the past week, Azra Games has successfully raised $15 M in a seed round.

Famous Investment Fund participating in the funding round:

• Andreessen Horowitz (a16z): An investment fund founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. This is an investment fund operating in Silicon Valley.
• Coinbase Ventures: The venture capital arm of the Coinbase exchange.

Goals after the funding round: The capital will be used by Azra Games to develop its first product, called Project Arcanas. This will be a sci-fi game with multiplayer.

BitKeep raises $15 M in Series A

What is BitKeep?

BitKeep is a leading crypto wallet in Asia. BitKeep supports multi platform, IOS, Android and Chrome Extension. This is a multichain e-wallet, consisting of more than 50 chains. BitKeep supports up to 45k different asset classes and is associated with over 10k Dapps. Over the past week, BitKeep has successfully raised $15M, raising the company's valuation to $100M.

Famous Investment Fund participating in the funding round:

• Dragonfly Capital: Cryptocurrency Investment Fund was established in 2018. It was created with the goal of bringing together leading projects in the decentralized economy, investing and supporting project construction, bringing the best project for the Dragonfly Capital ecosystem.
• KuCoin Ventures: The investment arm of the KuCoin cryptocurrency exchange in China.

Goals after the funding round:The capital will be used for future development and expansion plans of BitKeep. BitKeep is currently the leading e-wallet in the Asian market.

Questbook raised $8.5M in Series A 

What is Questbook?

Questbook is a protocol for managing grants programs and hackathons. Realizing the difficulty of managing incentive funds, from creation to approval for builders, Questbook created a software that enables users to complete the entire complex process in no time, easily and on one platform. The whole thing will be done completely on-chain.

Famous Investment Fund participating in the funding round:

• Coinbase Ventures: The venture capital arm of the Coinbase exchange.
• Lemniscap: An investment company in Hong Kong, focusing on investing in blockchain projects.
• Alameda Research: An investment fund established in October 2017. They manage more than $1B in digital assets, with global operations and the ability to trade on all major exchanges and markets.

Goals after the funding round: The capital will be used to help Questbook continue to develop its infrastructure, which can reach more customers. Currently Questbook is supporting 3 main blockchains, Polygon, Aave and Harmony.

Conclusion

This is the end of the TOP 10 most outstanding investment deals in the past week. Hopefully, through this article, you will have an overview of the projects that have raised capital during the week.

Read more:  Aurora With $12M Raised - The Expansion Of The Near Ecosystem