Solrise Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol for the Solana network, has successfully concluded a $3.4-million raise for its non-custodial asset management platform, offering further evidence that the venture capital world continues to seek broad exposure to the digital asset market. Some of the biggest venture capital names in blockchain supported the Solrise funding round, including Alameda Ventures, Delphi Digital and CMS Ventures. Jump Capital, ParaFi Capital, DeFi Alliance, Reciprocal Ventures and SkyVision Capital rounded out the participants. The capital raise will go toward making DeFi more accessible to a wider class of investors, Solrise announced Tuesday. This includes reducing …

Digital asset manager and Bitcoin (BTC) ETF proponent Valkyrie Investments recently concluded a $10 million Series A funding round, once again highlighting growing investor interest in crypto-focused firms. In addition to Charlie Lee, who is a well-known entrepreneur in the cryptocurrency industry, the funding round also saw participation from XBTO, BTC Media, UTXO Management, Consolidated Trading and 10X Capital. Interestingly, former Major League Baseball pitcher CJ Wilson was also among the investors, as was Tron founder Justin Sun. Valkyrie CEO and World Bank veteran Leah Wald said her firm is focused on broadening investor access to cryptocurrencies in a “managed, …

Transitioning from static digital collectibles to tokens with real utility will lead to a new generation of NFTs according to Tytan Inc the COO of NFTY labs, a platform focused on building products for the NFT space. In a recent interview with Cointelegraph, he said that even if the market is saturated, there is still room for startups to raise funds in the NFT ecosphere. “Most VCs are kind of catching on to the fact that a lot of the real value is in how you can use an NFT and not so much about what it looks like.”, he …

Several venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz have thrown their weight behind Nansen, an up-and-coming blockchain analytics platform for the DeFi sector. The $12 million Series A funding round included participation from Skyfall Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, imToken Ventures, QCP Capital and Mechanism Capital, Nansen announced Tuesday. Nansen said the funding will be used to hire additional talent, grow its analytics platform and provide additional services to networks like Polygon and Binance Smart Chain, among others. As a blockchain analytics platform, Nansen analyzes the activity of over 90 million Ethereum wallets. The platform integrates massive data sets and translates them into …

Andreessen Horowitz is launching a new crypto-focused fund dedicated to expanding the size and marketability of blockchain projects, offering further evidence that venture funds believe in the staying power of digital assets. Crypto Fund III, a $2.2-billion venture fund co-led by Andreessen Horowitz general partners Chris Dixon and Katie Haun, was officially announced Thursday morning. The fund will be used to finance cryptocurrency networks and teams that are contributing to the new decentralized economy. “This fund allows us to find the next generation of visionary crypto founders, and invest in the most exciting areas of crypto,” Andreessen Horowitz said. “We …

PayPal and Visa are among several major investors to have participated in a $300 million funding for Blockchain Capital. In a release issued on Tuesday, Blockchain Capital announced that the close of its Blockchain Capital V LP. According to the release, Fund V, capped at $300 million was oversubscribed with numerous investors including college endowments, family offices, and pension funds participating in the capital raise. As part of the announcement, Blockchain Capital stated that PayPal, Visa, and some other Fund V investors will take part in the firm’s strategic partnership program. Blockchain Capital is one of the oldest blockchain-focused funds …

Morgan Stanley has made its first capital investment foray into the blockchain space, co-leading a $48 million funding for Securitize. According to a release issued on Monday, the Coinbase-backed asset tokenization outfit has completed a Series B funding round that drew participation from Morgan Stanley Tactical Value-managed investment funds and Blockchain Capital. Other participants in the funding round included Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank (SMTB), Emin Gün Sirer’s Ava Labs, and venture capital fund IDC Ventures, among others. The oversubscribed Series B round also saw participation from previous Securitize backers like Ripple and Borderless Capital. Monday’s Series B funding announcement comes …

The newly rebranded Rangers Protocol has a valuation of $63 million following its latest private equity round, as the high-performance blockchain protocol eyes further expansion into new corners of the digital asset market. The Asia-based Rangers Protocol describes itself as a provider of “virtual worlds blockchain infrastructure,” which allows entrepreneurs and creators to build on top of the platform in a permissionless environment. Rangers Protocol includes a cross-chain protocol, nonfungible token protocol and Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible system. An impressive list of venture funds participated in the investment round, including Pantera Capital, Huobi Ventures Blockchain Fund, Framework Ventures, Alameda Research, …

Stake Technologies Inc., an infrastructure provider for decentralized applications and Web 3.0 protocols, has raised $10 million in strategic investments to help build out the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems through its wholly owned Plasm and Shiden networks. The funds will be immediately deployed to help Stake Technologies complete a successful parachain lease offering, or PLO, both on Kusama and Polkadot, the company announced Friday. The Kusama PLO will be conducted through the Shiden Network parachain, while Plasm Network will be dedicated to Polkadot. Stake Technologies has adopted a “crowdloan-centric strategy” for securing the Shiden parachain lease, which refers to one …

Cryptocurrency asset managers Pantera Capital and Arrington XRP Capital have co-led a $5.8 million private investment round for Unbound Finance, an up-and-coming DeFi treasury protocol for pooled tokens. The funds will be used to further develop Unbound Finance’s cross-chain stablecoin platform, including the development of native bridges for instant transfers between its native UNB stablecoin and other synthetic assets, the company announced Wednesday. Unbound Finance operates a so-called “liquidation-free collateralization platform,” which, as the name suggests, allows users to obtain interest-free loans against collateralized tokens. Automated market makers are “DeFi's Zero to One Innovation and we are building the aggregator …

Cryptocurrency venture capital funds have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Solana Labs to support further development and execution of decentralized applications and platforms building on Solana. Solana Labs, the blockchain development studio devoted to incubating Solana projects, announced Wednesday that it had raised $314.15 million through a private token sale — marking one of the largest private sales of the year. The funding will be used to bootstrap existing and forthcoming decentralized applications and platforms building on Solana. It will also be used to establish a venture investing arm and trading desk dedicated to the Solana network. Anatoly …

Cryptocurrency lending platform BlockFi is reportedly looking to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding at a valuation of nearly $5 billion, offering further insights into the growth of crypto-focused companies. The company, which was founded in 2017 by Zac Prince and Flori Marquez, is said to be in late-stage talks with new and existing investors to secure the capital raise, according to technology publication The Information. New York-based hedge fund Third Point Management and Hedosophia, a London-based venture capital firm, are reportedly leading the new funding round. The same report indicates that the latest funding round has …