The crypto VC community has invested in several startups this week, including Story Protocol’s $80 million Series B funding round.
The week of August 18-24 was a busy one in the crypto venture capital space. According to crypto funding tracker Crypto Fundraising, 32 blockchain startups raised more than $202 million from various investors during this period.
Below we look at some of the most outstanding ones.
Story Protocol, $80 million
Story Protocol raised $80 million in its second round of funding. Crypto venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz led the round, which also included participation from Polychain Capital, Hashed, Samsung Next, and SparkLabs Global, among others.
The Series B round brings the San Francisco-based startup’s total funding to $140 million and its company value to an impressive $2.25 billion.
The company wants to combat what it sees as a growing problem of intellectual property theft, especially in the age of generative artificial intelligence.
Story’s blockchain network allows IP owners to store their creations on the platform and embed licensing terms directly into smart contracts.
This will ensure that intellectual property owners are compensated whenever their content is used, while also addressing growing concerns from tech giants using AI models to use copyrighted material without proper authorization.
Sorella Labs, $7.5 million
Next on the list is Sorella Labs, also a San Francisco-based startup. The company secured $7.5 million in funding to advance its work on developing tools to identify and process activities with maximum extractable value on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain.
Research-focused technology investment firm Paradigm led this special funding round. Other participants included Nascent, Uniswap Ventures, Robot Ventures, and Bankless Ventures.
Sorella Labs plans to use the proceeds to expand its business and accelerate the development of its key products Brontes and Angstrom.
Corn, $6.7 million
Corn is another winner in this week’s crypto VC fundraising column. The Ethereum layer-2 network that uses hybrid tokenized bitcoins (BTC) as gas raised $6.7 million in a seed round led by Polychain Capital.
Binance Labs, Framework Ventures and Polygon (MATIC) co-founder Sandeep Nailwal also participated in the round.
Corn reportedly aims to create a “crop circle” ecosystem that brings users, applications and token holders together to address challenges faced by other decentralized networks, including insufficient liquidity and limited token utility.
BSX Exchange, $6.2 million
Meanwhile, BSX Exchange, a decentralized derivatives protocol built on the Ethereum L2 network Base, raised $6.2 million in pre-seed and seed funding rounds.
The $4 million seed round was led by Blockchain Capital. Other notable investors include Bankless Ventures and Maelstrom, the family office of BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes.
With this fresh capital, BSX plans to expand beyond derivatives trading. In September, the company will launch a spot aggregator and several earn-and-stake products shortly thereafter.
Decent network, $5 million
Orderly Network, a project developing a liquidity layer for Web3, was also successful in a $5 million funding round. Backers include OKX Ventures, Manifold Trading, and Origin Protocol.
The team behind the project plans to use the funds to strengthen its capabilities in creating a permissionless liquidity layer for Web3 trading across multiple blockchains.
Currently, Orderly supports six chains, including Ethereum mainnet and Polygon, and aims to provide high liquidity for all assets on these networks.
Further financing rounds
Rounding out the week’s notable VC funding rounds are three projects: Soulbound, Stork Network and Thalex, who collectively raised more than $12 million, with the social gaming arm of web3 receiving $4 million from Animoca Brands to further its mission of empowering its new creator economy.
Soulbound is building a platform that combines GameFi and SocialFi to deliver a new digital experience. The platform’s developers say they will use the money to build gaming partnerships, expand social interactions, and expand streamer bounties and social quests.
Stork Network, in turn, received $4.705 million in seed funding to expand its product offerings, including the development of its open data marketplace. Lightspeed Faction and Lattice co-led the round, which also included participation from CMS and Wintermute Ventures.
Finally, Thalex, a crypto derivatives exchange, raised €3 million ($3.3 million) in a Series A extension. According to Axios, which exclusively reported on the fundraising, backers of the extended round included Bitfinex, Bitstamp and Flow Traders. IMC and Wintermute also invested in the project.
