Crypto-focused enterprise payment platform Tribal Credit has raised $60 million in an oversubscribed investment round, putting the company on track to continue its expansion in Latin America — a region that has seen significant uptake of blockchain-based cross-border payments. The Series B investment round was led by SoftBank Latin America Fund, a venture fund that has invested in several fintech and software companies throughout the region. Coinbase Ventures also participated in the round alongside venture firms BECO Capital, QED Investors and Rising Tide. Tribal said it will use the cash injection to fund its operations across the region, including building …

Operator-led venture capital firms Velvet Sea Ventures and 01 Advisors invested $100 million into Pixel Vault, a large nonfungible token collection of superheroes, to jointly launch the rebranded multi-franchise NFT entertainment company, Pixel Vault Inc. According to Pixel Vault, the aim of the new venture is to leverage NFTs and intellectual property to tell the stories of crypto-native communities across a variety of mediums, including television, movies and video games. Pixel Vault owns 100% of the IP, assets and operations of PUNKS Comic, MetaHero, and all future franchises. Pixel Vault's founder and CEO Sean Gearin, also known as GFunk, launched …

Dune Analytics, a leading data analytics platform, has announced a capital raise of $69,420,000, in addition to a $1 billion-dollar valuation, the latter of which means that the company attained "unicorn" status, which describes privately-held startups that have attained a valuation of $1 billion or more. The Series B raise was led by New-York based private equity firm Coatue, with additional participation from previous investors Multicoin Capital and Dragonfly Capital, among others. The raise succeeds the company’s seed funding round of $2 million in September 2020 — of which Dragonfly Capital Partners was the lead investor — and its follow-up …

Despite growing fears over a potential cryptocurrency market downturn, major industry firms like FTX keep gaining momentum by securing hundreds of millions in fresh funding. FTX Trading, the owner and operator of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange FTX, officially announced Monday that it closed a $400 million Series C funding round, bringing the firm to a $32 billion in valuation. The new fundraise comes several days after FTX’s United States-based sister firm FTX US also raised $400 million in a Series A round on Jan. 26, reaching an $8 billion valuation. According to the announcement, the latest fundraise saw participation from …

Software wallet and browser extension Phantom has raised $109 million in Series B financing to continue expanding its cross-platform capabilities beyond Solana. The funding round was led by Paradigm, an investment firm focused on cryptocurrency and Web3 companies. Other venture firms to have supported Phantom in prior funding deals include Andreessen Horowitz, Jump Capital and Variant Fund. According to Phantom, the funding will help enhance the wallet’s technical capabilities, such as better app discovery, as well as allow the company to hire additional employees. In addition to its funding round, Phantom also announced Monday that its mobile app is now …

Astar, a multichain DApp protocol formerly known as Plasm, has raised $22 million in its latest strategic fundraise. The funding round was led by Polychain and saw participation from the likes of Alameda Research, Crypto.com Capital, Digital Finance Group and a few other angel investors. Astar rose to popularity after gaining the Polkadot parachain slot last December and the protocol was officially launched on Jan. 17th. Astar is currently working to become the first protocol to support two virtual machines on its Polkadot parachain- The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and WebAssembly (WASM). While EVM is currently active, the platform would …

Blockchain payments company Ripple made it abundantly clear this week that it's not letting its feud with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hold back its business plans. On Wednesday, the company announced it had repurchased all Series C shares that it issued to private investors back in December 2019 — even though a court ruling in 2021 said it didn't have to. This week's Crypto Biz explores Ripple's share repurchase and provides an overview of the biggest funding stories of the week. We also weigh a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) proposal by Valkyrie that seeks to provide …

The news about crypto derivatives exchange Bybit was two-fold Thursday, as the company announced via Twitter its $134 million contribution to the BitDAO Treasury in the form of Ether (ETH), Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), as well as the completion of the integration of Ethereum layer-2 solution Arbitrum. BitDAO currently has one of the largest decentralized treasuries and it recently funded a $200M zkDAO to further build on zkSync and scale Ethereum. Bybit's investment attests to its confidence in BitDAO to lead and support DeFi projects. Bybit joins other backers such as Peter Thiel, Founders Fund, Pantera, Dragonfly and …

Digital asset custody platform Fireblocks has raised $550 million in Series E funding to become one of the blockchain industry’s most valuable companies, underscoring heightened institutional appetite for cryptocurrency products despite extreme price volatility. The investment round was co-led by venture firms D1 Capital Partners and Spark Capital, with participation from Parafi Growth Fund, Canapi Ventures, Altimeter, General Atlantic, Index Ventures, Mammoth, CapitalG and Iconiq Strategic Partners. Since launching in 2019, Fireblocks has raised a cumulative $799 million from some of blockchain’s leading venture firms. As Cointelegraph reported, the company secured $310 million in a Series D funding round that …

Cryptocurrency portfolio tracker and tax calculator CoinTracker has attained “unicorn” status after raising $100 million in Series A financing, demonstrating once again that investors are allocating vast sums of capital toward crypto-focused companies. The Series A investment round was led by California-based venture capital firm Accel, with additional participation from General Catalyst, Initialized Capital, Y Combinator Continuity, 776 Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Intuit Ventures and Kraken Ventures. Individual investors who participated in the round included former Stripe COO Hughes Johnson, Coinbase board member Gokul Rajaram and Jeremy Liew, an early investor in Affirm and Snapchat. With the capital raise, CoinTracker’s total …

Singapore-based Blockchain Founders Fund has launched a new venture capital fund to support emerging projects in the cryptocurrency, metaverse and Web3 sectors, offering further evidence that investors are still keen to back major growth trends in the digital asset market. Blockchain Founders Fund II, also known as BFF II, has raised $75 million from various investors across the blockchain and crypto industry, including NEO Global Capital, Appworks, Baksh Capital, Octava and The Sandbox COO Sebastien Borget. BFF II has already deployed capital across 11 projects, including a layer-two derivatives exchange, several play-to-earn games and a DeFi protocol. BFF II is …

This week’s Crypto Biz explores Microsoft’s Activision purchase, the new partnership between Coinbase and Mastercard and the latest funding news from the world of crypto. For a comprehensive breakdown of business developments over the last week, register for the full newsletter below. Microsoft enters the metaverse with Activision purchase It’s no secret that Microsoft has been eyeing its entry into the metaverse ever since Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook to Meta. The company found its perfect entry this week by acquiring gaming giant Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Satya Nadella, who has served as Microsoft’s CEO since 2014, described video games as …