Crypto-focused venture firm Framework Ventures has raised $400 million in new funding to invest in early-stage companies across the Web3, blockchain gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi) industries. "FVIII," as the fund is called, includes a $200 million allocation to blockchain gaming projects, the company confirmed Tuesday. Framework Ventures, which had early exposure to DeFi, now has over $1.4 billion in assets under management. The company was an early investor in projects such as Chainlink, Aave and The Graph. Like DeFi in 2020, gaming and Web3 have been identified as the next major growth plays for the blockchain industry. Axie Infinity …

Crypto exchange KuCoin’s venture capital arm and nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace have launched a $100 million “Creators Fund” to help bootstrap early-stage NFT projects at the intersection of art, sports and GameFi. KuCoin Ventures and the Windvane NFT marketplace have created the fund to help artists and creators showcase their work and scale their business to wider audiences, the companies announced Tuesday. The fund’s mandate is to support promising NFT projects that are contributing to the development of Web3, which refers to the next iteration of the internet powered by blockchain technology. Windvane is a new NFT marketplace from KuCoin …

Crypto exchange CoinDCX became India’s first crypto business to complete a Series D funding round, raising $135 million in support of various Web3 and crypto initiatives in the country. The latest funding round resulted in CoinDCX doubling its valuation to $2.15 billion, which was led by Pantera and Steadview and saw participation from prominent investors including Kingsway, DraperDragon and Republic. Speaking to Cointelegraph, CoinDCX CEO Sumit Gupta highlighted CoinDCX’s commitment to spreading awareness on crypto, blockchain and Web3: “With this funding, we will double our efforts to grow, with a focus on educating corporate and retail investors on the true …

The past seven days have reminded me of how lucky I am to have forged a career in the Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency industry. Cointelegraph sent a contingency of reporters to the Bitcoin conference in Miami, where we got to chop it up with billionaires, business leaders and hedge fund managers. I had the privilege of sitting down with Canadian businessman and Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, who actually revealed most of his crypto portfolio. I also got to interview Bloomberg’s senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone, who shed light on crypto market volatility, as well as Mark Yusko of Morgan …

According to a report published by Bloomberg on Thursday, Ava Labs is en route to raising a new round of funding for $350 million at a valuation of $5.25 billion. Details of the agreement have not been made public. Ava Labs is the lead developer of the Avalanche (AVAX) blockchain. The total value locked, or TVL, on AVAX currently sits at $14.6 billion, according to data from DeFi Llama. Decentralized finance, or DeFi, borrowing and lending protocol Aave accounts for 33.72% of the market share on the blockchain. AVAX has become one of the most popular blockchains, surpassing a market …

Crypto hedge fund giant Pantera Capital is set to close a blockchain fund next month that is backed by around $1.3 billion worth of capital. The Pantera Blockchain Fund was announced in May last year, with plans to raise $600 million to invest in early-stage tokens, venture equity, Web3 firms and tokens with strong liquidity. It has since surpassed that target significantly, with the firm revealing last month that the fund had topped $1 billion. The latest $1.3 billion figure was noted during an April 12 investor conference call regarding the company’s new $200 million Pantera Select Fund that will …

Nonfungible token (NFT) startup Genies has secured $150 million in Series C funding at a valuation of $1 billion, making it the latest crypto-focused platform to attain “unicorn” status. The funding round was led by California-based private equity firm Silver Lake, which manages $88 billion in assets as of 2021, with additional participation from existing investors Tamarack Global, BOND and NEA. Genies said the funding will go towards increasing internal capacity in its engineering department as well as investing in new technologies. Founded in 2017, Genies is an avatar technology company that first set out to target social media and …

Circle, a major peer-to-peer payments firm and the principal operator of the UDC Coin (USDC), has announced a $400 million funding round and a new partnership with the American investment firm BlackRock. The USDC issuer has entered into an agreement for a funding round featuring investors like BlackRock, the investment advisory firm Fidelity Management and Research, the London-based hedge fund Marshall Wace and Fin Capital, as Circle officially announced Tuesday. The investment round is expected to close in the second quarter 2022. Apart from providing strategic investment and being primary asset manager of USDC cash reserves, BlackRock has inked a …

Popular decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap has announced the formation of Uniswap Labs Ventures (ULV), a venture capital fund focused on investing in Web3 companies and projects. The firm will invest at any stage of development into various projects or technologies related to Web3, infrastructure, developer tools, and consumer-facing applications as areas of interest according to the announcement on Monday, April 11. The firm has already invested in 11 companies and Web3 protocols, including decentralized money market Aave, the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) behind the DAI stablecoin, MakerDAO, and blockchain bridging protocol LayerZero. In the announcement, Uniswap expressed what it looked …

The TON Foundation, an organization building on the Telegram-initiated blockchain project, The Open Network (TON), has chosen the TONcoin Fund as its official ecosystem fund. The TONcoin Fund announced on Monday the launch of an ecosystem fund focusing on supporting TON-based projects, securing an initial collective commitment of up to $250 million from major firms within the industry. The fund has earned the title of the TON Foundation’s official incubation partner, meaning that they will support the fund’s portfolio investments. The fund’s contributors included firms like Huobi Incubator, Kucoin Ventures, MEXC Pioneer Fund, 3Commas Capital, the blockchain startup Orbs, TON …

Near Protocol (NEAR) has rallied by almost 30% after announcing on April 6 that it had raised $350 million in a funding round led by Tiger Global, a New York-based hedge fund. NEAR price eyes 100% price rally NEAR's price reached over $19.75, just about 2.5% below its all-time high. However, many analysts agreed with the potential for the NEAR/USD pair to reclaim its best level to date, and even rise above it in the coming weeks. Adoption remained the key focus behind the bullish predictions. For instance, Zoran Cole, the founder of the popular Telegram group Crypto Insiders highlighted …

Binance .US, the American partner of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading value, has completed its first-ever external funding from investors like Circle Ventures. Binance.US has raised more than $200 million in a seed round to reach a pre-money valuation of $4.5 billion, the firm announced to Cointelegraph on Wednesday. Circle's venture arm Circle Ventures joined the funding round. “Circle Ventures is excited to invest in Binance.US. We are committed to helping create a robust and competitive digital assets ecosystem,” Circle’s chief financial officer Jeremy Fox-Geen said. The funding round also involved VanEck, one of the first United …