Matter Labs, the developer behind the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible zkSync, has received major industry backing as it pledges to fully open source its platform — marking the first such initiative for a ZK-rollup technology. Matter Labs confirmed on Nov. 16 that it had closed a $200 million Series C funding round co-led by Blockchain Capital and Dragonfly, with additional participation from LightSpeed Venture Partners, Variant and existing investor Andreessen Horowitz. The company has now raised $458 million in financing across all rounds, including $200 million from BitDAO that’s earmarked for funding ecosystem projects. Founded in 2018, Matter Labs is …

The co-founder of asset management firm Paradigm says they feel “deep regret” for having invested in FTX amid recent revelations involving FTX, Alameda Research, and Sam Bankman-Fried. In a Twitter post on Nov. 15, Matt Huang, co-founder and managing partner of Paradigm said the firm is “shocked” by the revelations surrounding the two companies and their founder, adding: “We feel deep regret for having invested in a founder and company who ultimately did not align with crypto’s values and who have done enormous damage to the ecosystem.” Paradigm is a crypto and Web3-focused venture capital firm based in San Francisco. …

In the past, it was often said that Bitcoin (BTC) moves the entire crypto and blockchain industry. Is this still the case? The past few months have seen Bitcoin hitting high-water marks including all-time high long-term holder rates and local highs in hash rate difficulty adjustment — yet Bitcoin is still in bearish conditions as we head into Q4 of 2022. Not all areas of the blockchain industry can boast such signals of strength, such as venture capital (VC), which brought in $840,000 in October, down 48.6% from the previous month. Likewise, there has been a continued drop in GameFi …

As the effects of the FTX crisis continue to affect the markets negatively, crypto exchange Binance is creating a fund to help potentially strong projects that are having liquidity issues. In a tweet, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said that the fund aims to reduce the cascading negative effects of the collapse of FTX by helping projects that the Binance CEO described as “strong, but in a liquidity crisis.” While Zhao did not provide all the information on which projects would qualify, he told teams who believe they may fit the criteria to contact Binance Labs, the exchange’s venture capital arm. …

Venture capital firm Sequoia Capital tweeted out a letter sent to its partners on Nov. 10 revealing the firm had marked its $213.5 million investments in FTX and FTX US down to $0, claiming them as a complete loss. The letter said that the crisis facing FTX has “created a solvency risk” but claimed its exposure to the exchange is “limited” in its Global Growth Fund III, where its cost basis for the FTX portion of the fund totaled $150 million. Here is the note we sent to our LPs in GGFIII regarding FTX. pic.twitter.com/Cgp1Yxk1pz — Sequoia Capital (@sequoia) November …

Crypto-focused fintech company Ramp has raised $70 million in venture capital, upping its pledge to continue building a unified payment experience for digital assets. The Series B investment round was co-led by venture firms Mubadala Capital and Korelya Capital, Ramp disclosed Wednesday. As reported by Cointelegraph, Ramp raised $53 million in a Series A funding round that closed in December 2021, bringing its total capital raise to roughly $123 million. Ramp’s management said the new funds would go toward improving its product line, expanding into new locations and increasing the number of fiat currencies and payment methods offered. Ramp’s primary …

This year’s bear market trajectory should be looked upon as a favorable opportunity for Web3 founders to raise capital and build cutting-edge products. Some of the most robust businesses today were built during market downturns, and founders now have a real opportunity to ensure they’re building products and services that meet genuine, real-world needs and look beyond oversized checks to find the most suitable business partnership. Determining the best methods to fund your product and company is of paramount importance and not a decision to be rushed into. It is an action that requires due diligence and an acute understanding …

The ride-sharing industry is poised for another paradigm shift with Web3 protocols, allowing new companies and drivers to bid for rides using a matching algorithm, according to the Decentralized Engineering Cooperation (DEC) — the company behind the Solana-based protocol TRIP that enables mobility-based applications. According to DEC, on the TRIP ecosystem, companies and riders can collaborate and compete in a shared marketplace. The protocol also rewards the most active participants with stake in its governance for both drivers and customers. The first company to operate on TRIP is Teleport, a decentralized ride-sharing application set to be launched in December and …

Projects building on the Celo blockchain have collectively raised $77.3 million in support of various business initiatives, underscoring the growing adoption of the payments-focused developer network. Celo announced Thursday that projects impactMarket, Loam, Tatum, Circular Impact, Sanergy, Hyperlane, RedStone and Jia had secured the funding to further the adoption of Web3 business models. The biggest raise came from blockchain development platform and early Celo Foundation grant recipient Tatum, which secured $41.5 million. Hyperlane, an interchain communication protocol focused on interoperability, secured $18.5 million in seed funding led by venture firm Variant. Projects focused on regenerative finance (ReFi), including impactMarket, Loam …

In 2022, it’s no surprise that most assets are in a bear market. People have a variety of signals they look for when determining a good time to enter the market, and Cointelegraph Research’s Venture Capital Report for Q2 revealed that VC inflows stagnated at just above $14 billion last quarter, the same as Q1. However, the third quarter did not fare as well, dropping over 66% to just $4.98 billion, as Cointelegraph Research explores in its latest Venture Capital Report for Q3. The number of deals also declined to 338 for the entire quarter, compared with Q2’s 621. While …

Web3 dominance within crypto funding rounds has been well documented by Cointelegraph Research. In addition to the Web3 mega funds announced recently, venture capital has also been making smaller, more targeted investments in the sector. In this week’s Venture Capital (VC) Roundup, we chronicle the latest Web3 funding initiatives and draw attention to a sharding platform, nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace, crypto banking solution and co-ownership infrastructure provider. Related: Blockchain games and metaverse projects raised $1.3B in Q3: DappRadar Gamers, athletes and content creators back WWVentures WWVentures, a boutique crypto venture firm, has raised $15 million for its Web3 fund — …

Celestia Foundation announced on Oct. 18 that it had raised $55 million in a funding round led by Bain Capital Crypto, Polychain Capital, Placeholder, Galaxy, Delphi Digital, Blockchain Capital, NFX, Protocol Labs, Figment, Maven 11, Spartan Group, FTX Ventures, Jump Crypto, and angel investors; Balaji Srinivasan, Eric Wall, and Jutta Steiner. Celestia is building a modular blockchain architecture with the hope of solving challenges inherent when deploying and scaling blockchains. The company suggested that it intends to build infrastructure that will make it easy for anyone with the technical know-how to deploy their own blockchain at minimal expense. The company …