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In a surprising turn of events, several crypto projects have managed to raise a whopping $50 million in funding in the last 24 hours. This comes despite the ongoing bear market in the crypto industry.
According to sources, these projects managed to attract the attention of several venture capitalists and investors, who were impressed by their innovative solutions and potential for growth. The funding will reportedly be used to further develop and expand these projects, with a particular focus on improving their underlying technologies and increasing their user base.
Crypto projects thrive amid a looming bear market
The successful fundraising efforts of these projects serve as a reminder that the crypto industry is still full of opportunities for those willing to take risks and innovate. While the current bear market may be discouraging to some, it is clear that there are still investors willing to support projects that show promise and potential for growth.
Wildxyz’s seed funding round raises $7M
Wildxyz, a popular Web3 art platform, has raised $7 million in seed funding. On March 9, the company revealed plans to use the funds to further non-fungible token (NFT)-related projects, such as residency programs. Matrix Partners led the successful funding round in collaboration with Dominoes in the crypto space. Aside from crypto firms, the seed round was supported by crypto moguls and celebrities, including Gwyneth Paltrow.
According to Wildxyz, a residency program, in particular, was launched to support the development of NFT art by involving artists in mentorship programs, technical support, and community development projects.
According to a report from Douglas Cobbs, CEO of Wildxyz, the residency program aims to assist dedicated artists in developing unique Web3 projects critical to the development of NFTs. Cobbs sees augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies as converging forces that will drive the Web3 revolution in the report. He went on to say that the Wild team intends to use their expertise and technologies to create an NFT collection that improves the user experience and sustains community growth.
Zero-Knowledge crypto startup proven raises $15.8M in seed round
Proven, a zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs developer that helps exchange and asset management clients in proving their solvency, raised $15.8 million in a seed round led by crypto-focused venture capital firm Framework Ventures.
According to a statement, the proceeds of the capital raise will be used to help Proven expand its team and scale its infrastructure. Balaji Srinivasan, Roger Chen, and Ada Yeo were among the other investors in the round.
Proven’s technology combines ZK proofs, a type of cryptography that can prove something is true while maintaining anonymity, with quantitative solutions. Exchanges, stablecoin issuers, asset managers, and custodians can show potential customers, partners, or regulators their assets and liabilities without having to publicly disclose their balance sheets or other sensitive data.
For increased transparency, Proven’s “Proof of Solvency” can be run daily. The fundraising follows a year of high-profile crypto collapses due to insolvency issues, including the multibillion-dollar centralized exchange FTX.
Cubist raises $7M in seed funding
Cubist, a New York-based provider of security-focused Web3 dev tools, has raised $7 million in seed funding. Polychain Capital led the round, with participation from dao5, Amplify Partners, Polygon, Blizzard, and Axelar. The funds will be used to expand the company’s team, accelerate product development, and scale its technological capabilities.
Cubist is a Web3 infrastructure provider led by CEO Riad Wahby and COO Ann Stefan that creates secure-by-design tools that enable developers to build, test, and deploy dApps at scale safely. Web3 dApp engineers can use the company’s services to manage their development, testing, deployment, and upgrade workflows in custom, security-focused CI/CD pipelines.
Cubist applies software engineering best practices to the entire lifecycle of a dApp, from Continuous Integration (CI) testing to push-button deployment backed by secure credential management, via its modular set of security-focused dev tools. This software enables developers to create the best applications possible without having to navigate complex interfaces and infrastructure.
Violet launches Mauve and raises $15 million
Violet, the world’s leading provider of privacy-protective compliance and identity infrastructure for Decentralized Finance (DeFi), announced the launch of Mauve, the world’s first compliant Decentralized Exchange (DEX) designed to bring the best of DeFi and Traditional Finance (TradFi) to the crypto markets, yesterday.
Violet plans to use the $15 million in funding from a group of prominent global investors, including BlueYard Capital, Balderton, Ethereal Ventures, FinTech Collective, Brevan Howard, and Coinbase Ventures, among others, to accelerate the global adoption of Mauve. Co-Founder of Violet, Markus Maier, explains:
Mauve is a direct response to the FTX fallout, which has significantly eroded trust in crypto globally by misappropriating funds. The future is dependent on the continued adoption of non-custodial crypto exchanges. Mauve empowers its users to trade without surrendering custody of their assets. This means no one can access, much less steal, any retail or institutional investor’s funds, helping to restore confidence among market participants. - Markus Maier
Stablecoin issuer ECSA secures $3 million in funding
ECSA, a Brazilian-based stablecoin issuer, raised $3 million to bring the major carry currencies onto the blockchain. According to the company’s press release, the pre-seed funding round included investors such as startup accelerator Y Combinator and Arca.
A crypto trade occurs when an investor borrows a low-yielding currency, known as a funding currency, in order to purchase a higher-yielding currency, such as the Brazilian Real or the Mexican Peso. The trader then pocketed the difference in interest rates between the two. ECSA co-founder Joao Aguiar stated in the release:
Funding currencies such as USD and EUR are already well-represented on-chain. We are completing the equation. - Joao Aguiar
Gyroscope raises $4.5 million to launch a ‘unique’ stablecoin
Gyroscope, a crypto startup that claims to be developing a unique stablecoin, has announced a $4.5 million seed funding round. According to Gyroscope, the round was co-led by Placeholder VC and Galaxy Ventures, with participation from Maven 11, Archetype, Robot Ventures, Balancer Labs co-founder and CEO Fernando Martinelli, and others.
The round ended in January 2022, but Gyroscope is making it public now because the protocol’s codebase is nearly complete and the company is preparing for a full launch.
Gyroscope aims to address the issues that stablecoins face today, such as risk, adoption, and sustainability. The project is a “new third path between centralized and algorithmic stablecoins,” according to Gudgeon. He claims Gyroscope’s stablecoin, known as gyro dollar and denoted by the ticker GYD, is non-custodial and fully reserve backed.
