Decentralized exchange Uniswap Labs has raised $165 million in a Series B funding round that had participation from some of blockchain's biggest venture firms, putting the company on track to expand into other crypto-focused domains. The funding round was led by Polychain Capital with additiona participation from several existing investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, Variant and SV Angel. The funding round confirms earlier reporting from Cointelegraph that Uniswap was looking to raise between $100 million and $200 million. Uniswap said the funding would go toward expanding its existing product offerings and improving the user experience through new web applications, developer …

nxyz, a Web3 platform enabling data infrastructure for blockchains, secured $40 million in Series A funding led by venture firm Paradigm with additional participation from Coinbase Ventures, Greylock Partners and Sequoia Capital. Angel investors also participated, including Balaji Srinivasan, Jaynti Kanani, Jing Wang, Packy McCormick, Surojit Chatterjee and Ryan Selkis. According to nxyz, the funds raised will be used to expand the company’s team, build support across emerging use cases, and expand across different chains. The company will focus on expanding its team globally, across engineering and partnerships, and also onboard several more blockchains in the upcoming months. The Web3 …

Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), the non-profit organization supporting the development of the Stellar network, has launched a new funding initiative to encourage developers to build on the Soroban smart contract platform, which officially went live on Futurenet Tuesday. Soroban brings Turing-complete smart contracts to the Stellar blockchain, enabling developers to build new financial services rails on the network, SDF said. Tomer Weller, SDF’s vice president of technology strategy, said Soroban was developed to overcome the “friction” of other blockchain networks. In an emailed response to Cointelegraph, Weller further explained: "When we looked at what was out there in the market …

Binance and tech investor Sequoia Capital are reportedly still backing Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover bid of social media platform Twitter. Sequoia Capital already committed $800 million to the deal back in April before Musk subsequently got cold feet. According to an unnamed source familiar with the matter, the firm will keep that capital allocation to support the deal now that the deal is reportedly back this month. Binance has also indicated that it will carry on with its contribution of $500 million, with a representative telling Cointelegraph that “we're still committed and nothing new to share at …

Horizon Blockchain Games, the developer behind the Skyweaver game, has raised $40 million in Series A funding, the company disclosed on Oct. 4. The round was led by Brevan Howard Digital and Morgan Creek Digital, with additional participation from Polygon, Take-Two Interactive, Ubisoft, Xsolla, The Sandbox’s co-founder Sebastien Borget, Sky Mavis and Axie Infinity co-founder Aleks Larsen, among other investors. With the funds, Horizon plans to invest in Web3 products and scale its operations. Specifically, the company wants to grow its developer stack and smart wallet Sequence, expand the content and reach of the nonfungible token (NFT) turn-based card game …

Crypto-focused investment firm M31 Capital has launched a new investment fund dedicated to Web3 companies, further underscoring the industry’s shift toward decentralized internet projects. The M31 Capital Web3 Opportunity Fund will invest up to $100 million in token projects and private equity opportunities within Web3, the company announced Tuesday. Initially, the fund will invest in projects building decentralized internet infrastructure and applications. Presumably, the new investment vehicle will be a “liquid venture fund,” a structure that gives investors liquidity after only a 12-month lock-up period. M31 clarified that it has already secured $50 million in commitments from investors and will …

Decentralized knowledge protocol Golden has closed a $40 million funding round led by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, with additional participation from Protocol Labs, OpenSea Ventures and the founders of Solana, Dropbox, Postmates and Twitch, among others. In addition to leading the Series B funding round, Andreessen Horowitz’s general partner Ali Yahya will join Golden’s board alongside a16z cofounder Marc Andreessen. The funding gives Golden additional resources to continue building its protocol, which is designed to standardize the discovery and verification of knowledge in the era of Web3. Specifically, Golden is developing a decentralized interface that incentivizes collecting and …

It is becoming increasingly challenging to support a bullish short-term view for cryptocurrencies as the total crypto market capitalization has been below $1.4 trillion for the past 146 days. Furthermore, a descending channel initiated in late July has limited the upside after two strong rejections. The 1% weekly negative performance in cryptocurrency markets was accompanied by stagnation in the S&P 500 stock market index, which remained basically flat at 3,650. Uncertainty continues to limit the eventual recovery as worsening global economic conditions have caused trans-Pacific shipping rates to plunge 75% versus the previous year, forcing ocean carriers to cancel dozens …

Major decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap is in the early stages of raising significant funds to further expand its decentralized finance (DeFi) offerings, according to a new report. Uniswap Labs, a DeFi startup contributing to the Uniswap Protocol, is engaging with a number of investors to raise an equity round of $100 million to $200 million, TechCrunch reported on Sept. 30. The startup is working with investors like Polychain and one of Singapore’s sovereign funds as part of the upcoming funding round, the report notes, citing two anonymous people familiar with the matter. According to the report, Uniswap would be valued …

Dan Morehead, founder and CEO of Pantera Capital, reportedly said the hedge fund was planning to raise $1.25 billion for a second blockchain fund. According to a Sept. 28 Bloomberg report, Morehead said Pantera aimed to close the blockchain fund by May. The fund will reportedly invest in digital tokens and equity in an effort to appeal to institutional investors. “We want to provide liquidity for people that are kind of giving up because we’re still very bullish for the next 10 or 20 years,” said the Pantera CEO, according to the report. Pantera Capital is seeking $1.25 billion for …

Solana ecosystem developer Coral has closed a $20 million investment round backed by some of crypto’s biggest venture funds, setting the stage for launching its new interactive wallet later this month. The investment round was co-led by FTX Ventures and Jump Capital with additional participation from Multicoin Capital, Anagram, K5 Global and other investors, Coral announced Wednesday. Coral said it would use the funds to build internal capacity and launch its flagship product, Backpack. Backpack is said to be an interactive wallet that delivers “crypto-native experiences” through so-called executable nonfungible tokens, or xNFTs. Coral describes xNFTs as analogous to mini-programs …

Multi-party computation (MPC) developer MPCH Labs has concluded a Series A funding round totaling $40 million ahead of the planned launch of its Fraction digital asset operating platform later this year. The funding round was led by Liberty City Ventures, the same venture studio that incubated MPCH Labs, with additional participation fro QCP Capital, Global Coin Research, Polygon Studios, Quantstamp, LedgerPrime, Animoca and others. To-date, MPCH Labs has raised $50 million in venture financing. The funding will be used to further develop MPCH Labs’ first product, Fraction, an operating platform that enables institutions to securely safeguard their digital assets. Fraction …