Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance (DeFi) newsletter. The DeFi space was full of fundraising this week. Read on to discover where the venture capital firm led by Reddit’s co-founder is making notable investments. What you’re about to read is the smaller version of this newsletter. For the full breakdown of DeFi’s developments over the last week, subscribe to our newsletter below. Near Protocol offers $800M fund to advance ecosystem Smart contracts platform Near Protocol has announced the allocation of an $800-million global funding initiative aimed at fostering the development of its DeFi ecosystem, as well as …

San Francisco based blockchain web services company Alchemy announced a $250 million Series C fundraising round led by Andreessen Horowitz on Thursday, bringing its current valuation to $3.5 billion. This announcement comes hot on the heels of a late April $80 million Series B, which previously valued the start up at $505 million. Pantera Capital, Redpoint, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coatue, DFJ and Lee Fixel’s Addition also participated in the Series C round. According to founders Nikil Viswanathan and Jon Lau, the company is “very profitable” and has thus far not spent any of that money, but plans to use the …

Data archiving protocol, KYVE, has announced a Series B funding raise of $2.875M instigated by institutional capital firms Permanent Ventures and Hypersphere Ventures, and participated by a vast collection of crypto projects and individual angel investors including, but not limited to, Coinbase Ventures, Volt Capital, Justin Kan and Robin Chan. KYVE has expressed the ambition of becoming the leading project in the Web 3.0 sphere with an inherent focus on data collection and digital calculation. The newly-established project, currently operating in testnet phase, utilizes blockchain indefinite storage service Arweave to provide a vast number of Web 3.0 use-cases including cross-chain …

Crypto listing platform CoinList has concluded a $100 million Series A fundraiser to fuel its global business expansion, bringing its total valuation to a whopping $1.5 billion. The cash injection will help CoinList scale its business operations, support its community of early adopters and launch new product offerings, the company announced Tuesday. The fundraiser was co-led by venture funds Accomplice and Agman, with additional participation from Fenbushi Capital, DFG, CMT Digital, FBG Capital and others. CoinList has seen its user base grow by 42 times over the past year, highlighting the massive adoption of cryptocurrency adoption worldwide. The platform is …

Ecosystem development funds have become one of the latest market-moving trends in the crypto sector and protocols with large treasuries have discovered that reward and incentive programs are one of the best ways to attract new users and protocols to a project. One protocol that has recently seen its token price rally following the release of an ecosystem development grant is Harmony (ONE), a blockchain protocol focused on improving scalability between networks. The project uses cross-sharded contracts and a cross-chain infrastructure between multiple blockchains including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Polkadot (DOT) and the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Data from Cointelegraph …

Smart contract ecosystem Near Protocol has earmarked $800 million for new funding initiatives aimed at growing its decentralized finance capabilities, offering the latest evidence that the highly lucrative DeFi market is still in its infancy. The new funding, which includes the $350 million grants program announced by Proximity Labs last week, gives ecosystem developers added incentive to create new product offerings on Near, the company announced Monday. Roughly $250 million will be allocated to existing ecosystem developers and another $100 million is earmarked for startup grants, with Near planning to fund more than 20 startups at a rate of $5 …

NFT development studio Mojito announced Friday that they have raised $20M in seed funding from a number of investors including internationally known auction house Sotheby's. According to an announcement published in Forbes, Sotheby’s auction house, in partnership with Future Perfect Ventures, Creative Artists Agency and NEA’s Connect Ventures, contributed to the round at Mojito’s estimated value of $100 Million. The Delaware-based start-up indicated that it will use this new injection of capital to grow and develop its engineering teams, make a better version of its current NFT platform and further develop its NFT trading and investment platforms. The NFT market …

Crypto-social platform Rally has earmarked $12 million for external developers to improve the functionality of the ecosystem, potentially setting the stage for new innovations that would benefit creators. The grants program will be distributed through RLY tokens, the native cryptocurrency of the Rally ecosystem, the company announced Friday. A community-elected developer council controls $5 million worth of RLY, giving it considerable sway over which types of bounties and rewards get distributed. Prior to establishing the new program, Rally awarded third-party developer grants to Bonfire, MintGate and David Young, the creator of the PLAY coin, which is built on Rally. Rally …

Cryptocurrency-to-fiat infrastructure provider XanPool continues expanding operations in the Asia-Pacific region by securing fresh funding. The Hong Kong-based startup raised $27 million in a Series A funding round led by Valar Ventures, a venture capital firm co-founded by PayPal co-creator Peter Thiel. Other participating investors included crypto-focused venture capital firm CMT Digital alongside angel investors such as TransferWise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus, XanPool announced Friday. Running operations in 13 countries across the Asia-Pacific region, XanPool is looking to further consolidate its presence with new funding. Jeffery Liu, CEO of XanPool, told Cointelegraph that the startup operates in countries like India, Hong …

Nonfungible token (NFT) company Candy Digital has secured $100 million in funding to expand its product footprint and creative capabilities, marking another major milestone for the rapidly growing NFT market. The funding will be used to expand Candy Digital’s NFT product offerings across the global sports marketplace, including creating new fan experiences, the company announced Thursday. Candy’s existing partnerships include Major League Baseball, Major League Baseball Players Association, Race Team Alliance and several college athletes. The Series A round was co-led by private equity firms Insight Partners and Softbank Vision Fund 2, with additional participation from Connect Ventures, Will Ventures, …

Funded by crypto heavyweights, new crypto unicorn Worldcoin revealed its plan to let everyone claim free coins to accelerate global crypto adoption. Providing the global population with free cryptocurrency sounds like a moonshot project, but $25 million in backing from Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, 1confirmation, Blockchange and Day One Ventures, and a valuation of $1 billion adds some weight to the Worldcoin project. Co-founded by Alex Blania, Sam Altman and Max Novendstern, Worldcoin saw the participation of more than 100,000 people from around the world during its test period and aims to reach over a billion people within two years. …

FTX, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, has raised $420 million in fresh funding, bringing its total valuation to $25 billion. The firm officially announced Thursday that FTX’s operator, FTX Trading, has completed a new Series B-1 fundraise involving 69 investors, including Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board and Singapore’s state investment firm Temasek. Other investors included major venture capital firms such as Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Sea Capital, Ribbit Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock. According to FTX head of product Ramnik Arora, the new funding will help the company further expand …