Dapper Labs releases the 725M USD fund, Chainalysis with Series F

Highlight in the top 10 fundraising deals in week 20: Dapper Labs launches 725 million USD fund, Chainalysis closes Series F round with 170 million USD, 6th Man Ventures raises 145 million USD,...

Overview of investment & funding activities (W20)

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

• 2 Blockchain/L2: Dapper Labs (Flow), Aurora
• 2 Web 3 Gaming projects: Nyan Heroes, Metatheory
• 1 Venture capital fund: 6th Man Ventures
• 1 AMM exchange: Chainflip
• 1 project on data analysis: Chainalysis
• 1 project on asset management: Coinshift
• 1 metaverse project: Lighthouse
• Others: Talos

Company and Venture Capital fundraisings

6th Man Ventures raised $145 M

What is 6th Man Ventures?

6th Man Ventures is a venture capital fund founded by technology veterans as well as crypto veterans. This investment fund was co-founded by Mike Dudas: CEO of The Block, a website specializing in market data analysis and providing useful information through online articles. The other founder is Serge Kassardjian, CEO of StayTuned Digital. 6th Man Ventures is a Venture Capital Fund, focusing on the crypto market.

6th Man's Limited Partners:

• Three Arrows Capital (3AC): A hedge fund, founded in 2012 and focuses on finding high returns, founded by Su Zhu and Kyle Davies.
• Animoca Brands: The leader in the blockchain gaming market and 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.
• FTX Ventures: The venture capital arm of the FTX exchange.

Goals after the funding round: The raised capital will be used for the 2nd fund of 6th Man Ventures. It is expected that the funding round will be closed with $145 M. Currently, 6th Man Ventures has successfully raised $140 M from investors.

Dapper Labs and its $725 M ecosystem fund

What is Dapper Labs?

Dapper Labs is a company that specializes in NFTs. Besides the famous games such as TopShot, Crypto Kitties or UFC Strike, this company is also the father of the Flow blockchain. Flow focuses on Dapps Games (Decentralized Games), collectibles and the applications that interact with them.

Dapper Labs’s partners:

• a16z: An investment fund founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. This is an investment fund operating in Silicon Valley, California and focusing on investing in technology startups, the Fund is also a well-known market maker.
• Digital Currency Group (DCG): An investment fund founded in 2015 by Barry Silbert with the mission to support and accelerate the development of a new financial system on blockchain, by building and supporting startups in cryptocurrency and blockchain.

Purpose of the ecosystem fund: The $725 M Fund will be dedicated to the Dapper Labs ecosystem and the Flow blockchain. The money in the Fund package will be used to support and encourage gaming or entertainment projects built on Flow.

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.

Aurora (AURORA) and the $90 M developer fund

What is Aurora?

Aurora EVM - or Ethereum Aurora virtual machine - is an application operating on NEAR Protocol that provides a solution for scaling dApps on Ethereum to NEAR. The Aurora virtual machine is a smart contract on NEAR Protocol, providing a solution similar to the Layer 2 solution for Ethereum 1.0, making dApps on Ethereum more scalable.

Aurora's partner:

• Proximity Labs: A research and development lab dedicated to the NEAR ecosystem. Proximity is Aurora's main partner in this Funding package release.

Purpose of the developer fund: This $90 M fund package will be used to reward builders that are building on Aurora. The money from this fund is taken from Aurora's DAO Treasury, worth around $25 M AURORA and is equivalent to $90 M at the moment.

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 Venture Capitals 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.

Nyan Heroes (NYN) raised $7.5 M

What is Nyan Heroes?

Nyan Heroes is a play-to-earn title built on Solana. Nyan Heroes is inspired by the famous meme cat Nyan Cat. This is a 3rd person shooter game, in which Nyan cats will control deadly machines to fight other players. Each machine and weapon will be separate NFTs, and users can freely create their own characters.

Famous Venture Capitals participating in the funding round:

• Kosmos Ventures: One of Australia's largest and most active Investment Funds. This is a multi-stage, multi-sector investment fund with the most focus on digital assets.
• Shima Capital: An investment fund founded by Yida Gao, a young trader who made it to the top of Forbes Under 30 2020. The fund focuses on investing and supporting projects in the blockchain field with nearly 90 capital investments.

Goals after the funding round: : The capital will be used by Nyan Heroes to expand its team for many fields, and at the same time develop the gaming community for Nyan Heroes. Currently, Nyan Heroes only has a cinematic trailer. Through the trailer, I think this is a very entertaining game with a lot of potential.

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,...

Chainalysis raised $170 M in Series F

What is Chainalysis?

Chainalysis is a company specializing in data analytics, operating since 2014. It is a company that provides data and software for government agencies and financial institutions on criminal behavior and money laundering activities through cryptocurrencies. In addition, Chainalysis provides a variety of institutional and risk management software for private companies, including crypto companies.

Famous Venture Capitals participating in the funding round:

• GIC: A Singapore sovereign wealth fund management company owned by the Government. The Singapore Government Investment Fund was established in 1981 with the objective of increasing the investment of the sovereign fund into assets with higher yields and longer-term investments.
• Blackstone: The world's leading investment and asset management company headquartered in New York, USA. As of 2021, this company is managing assets totaling up to $880 M.

Goals after the funding round: The money raised will be used for product innovation and global expansion, based on an existing customer base of 750 corporations in 70 countries.

Talos raised $105 M in Series B

What is Talos?

Talos is a platform that provides institutional-grade technology infrastructure that supports the entire lifecycle of digital asset trading and procurement including liquidity sourcing, price discovery, trade execution, payment, lending and borrowing. Talos connects many groups of people such as lenders, borrowers, exchanges, OTC markets,...

Famous Venture Capitals participating in the funding round:

• a16z: An investment fund founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. This is an investment fund operating in Silicon Valley, California and focusing on investing in technology startups. The Fund is also a well-known market maker.
• General Atlantic: An American growth holding company that provides capital and strategic support to grow companies globally. General Atlantic is headquartered in New York, United States.
• Citi Group: An American multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City.

Goals after the funding round: This round of funding brought Talos to a valuation of $1.25 B, making it the newest unicorn on the market. The capital will be used to expand Talos' markets to Europe and the Asia Pacific region.

Metatheory raised $24 M Series A

What is Metatheory?

Metatheory is a company specializing in building and developing Web 3 games, founded by Kevin Lin, co-founder of the Twitch livestream platform. Metatheory will focus on building and developing quality games with beautiful graphics and to optimize the player's experience. Besides developing mere Web 3 games, Metatheory also has plans to develop the metaverse. Metatheory's first product was DuskBreaker.

Famous Venture Capitals participating in the funding round:

• a16z: An investment fund founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. This is an investment fund operating in Silicon Valley, California and focusing on investing in technology startups. The Fund is also a well-known market maker.
• 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.
• FTX Ventures: The venture capital arm of the FTX exchange.

Goals after the funding round: The money invested will help Metatheory have a stable source of capital so that it can continue to develop DuskBreaker, research and build other games.

Coinshift raised $15 M in Series A

What is Coinshift?

Coinshift is an asset management platform that works on the infrastructure of Gnosis. Coinshift provides the necessary applications for DAOs or Crypto companies to easily manage the amount of assets in their treasury. Coinshift has a user-friendly interface with spending limits, push notifications, swaps, etc.

Famous Venture Capitals participating in the funding round:

• Tiger Global Management: An American investment company. It mainly focuses on the Internet technology, software, consumer and financial industries.
• Alameda Research: An investment fund established in October 2017. They manage more than $1B in digital assets, with global operations with the ability to trade on all major exchanges and markets.

Goals after the funding round:  The capital will be used for Coinshift to upgrade the application to V2. In this V2 version, managers will have more useful features such as managing assets on many different blockchains, assigning roles and functions for managers,...

Lighthouse raised $7 M in seed round

What is Lighthouse?

Lighthouse is a metaverse project that is not only creating a metaverse of its own, but rather building a system to connect that metaverse. Realizing that many major metaverses on the market like Decentraland or The Sandbox lack connectivity with each other, Lighthouse has created a navigation hub, making it possible for people in the metaverse to find other people in any other metaverse.

Famous Venture Capitals participating in the funding round:

• Accel: American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth stage investments. They are also leading this funding round of Lighthouse.
• Animoca Brands: The leader in the blockchain gaming market and 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.

Goals after the funding round: The capital will be used to continue building and developing Lighthouse.