Nonfungible token, or NFT, investment firm Sfermion have announced a secondary funding raise of $100 million — appropriately titled Fund II — from a number of established cryptocurrency investors including British billionaire Alan Howard, American entrepreneur Chris Dixon, Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and venture capital firm Digital Currency Group, amongst others. Whereas predecessor Fund I focused solely on NFT investment opportunities, seven-figure Fund II will be utilized to “accelerate the emergence of an open, decentralized metaverse” through strategic investments. Founded in 2019 by Andrew Steinwold, Sfermion are intent on identifying and investing in emerging projects, technologies and individuals …
Blockchain gaming platform Enjin is establishing a new fund to support the development of the metaverse ecosystem and make it more decentralized. Enjin, a startup behind the nonfungible token (NFT)-focused blockchain Efinity, has formed a $100 million fund to support Efinity adopters as well as other related projects, the startup announced Thursday. “It is now time for us to turn this into an official, public, and conscious piece of our growth strategy, and support a free, open, and decentralized Metaverse,” Enjin said, adding that it will consider equity investments in seed funding rounds and token purchases to nurture the ecosystem. …
As inflation continues to grow, coupled with a looming recession, many tech firms are having to cut portions of their staff. To put this in perspective, data from Layoffs.fyi found that over 700 tech startups have experienced layoffs this year, impacting at least 93,519 employees globally. It has also been reported that tech giants like Google, Netflix and Apple are undergoing massive job cuts. While many of these layoffs are likely due to an economic downturn, this has resulted in an overwhelming amount of talent flocking to early-stage Web3 companies. For example, Andrew Masanto, a serial entrepreneur who has founded …
Virtual world project The Sandbox announced its metaverse accelerator program that will push the development of the open metaverse by investing $50 million in startups. The Animoca Brands subsidiary is partnering with the venture accelerator firm Brinc to target 30 to 40 blockchain startups a year for the program. The Sandbox Metaverse Accelerator Program will allocate up to $250,000 in investment to each potential project and will give additional incentives to top-performing projects. The bonuses include The Sandbox (SAND) digital asset and LAND, digital real estate within The Sandbox’s metaverse. Apart from this, the best-performing startups will also have access …
Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance newsletter. As the DeFi space continues its technical resurgence, essential news on funding, innovation and DAOs continues to drive adoption in what remains a nascent industry. For the full version of this newsletter including longer, more descriptive analysis of the top stories this week, subscribe below: Alchemy raises $200M in latest funding, ACH token soars 77% Web3 platform Alchemy announced the launch of a $200-million Series C funding round this week, giving the company a decacorn status and a valuation of $10.2 billion. The seven-investor round was led by two California-based …