Blockchain.com $110M funding round halves its 2022 valuation: Report

November 14, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Blockchain.com 0M funding round halves its 2022 valuation: Report

Despite new investment in the crypto exchange, Blockchain.com’s valuation has more than halved from its $14 billion peak.

Crypto exchange and wallet provider Blockchain.com closed a $110 million Series E financing round, an investment that more than halves its previous 2022 valuation of $14 billion.

In a Nov. 14 blog post, Blockchain.com said the closing of its Series E round was led by the United Kingdom-based venture capital firm Kingsway Capital. It also saw participation from Baillie Gifford, Lakestar and Coinbase Ventures, among others.

A Nov. 14 Bloomberg report citing sources familiar with the matter said the $110 million round places Blockchain.com at less than half of its $14 billion valuation from March 2022.

On March 30, 2022, Blockchain.com closed a funding round that saw its valuation spike from $5.2 billion to $14 billion, less than two months before the collapse of Do Kwon’s Terra ecosystem triggered a liquidity cascade that bankrupted hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) and a slew of high profile crypto lenders.

Blockchain.com’s March 2022 funding round was led by global venture capital firm Lightspeed Ventures and Baillie Gifford & Co. — an investment management firm renowned for its early involvement in growth stocks such as Tesla.

While the new investment saw the firm’s valuation dip, the funding activity hints at a newfound investment appetite for crypto firms, buoyed by a continued uptick in digital asset prices more broadly.

The broader market enthusiasm for crypto assets is tied to multiple pending applications for spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) products from financial firms such as BlackRock and Fidelity.

Bitcoin (BTC) is currently up 116% in the last year, while other major cryptocurrencies such as Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL) are respectively up 61% and 300% over the last 12 months.

Founded in 2011, Blockchain.com has 37 million verified users with 82 million wallets and over $1 trillion in total transaction value across its platform.

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Polychain Capital, Coinfund raise $350M for new crypto funds: Report

July 19, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Polychain Capital, Coinfund raise 0M for new crypto funds: Report

Coin Telegraph

Polychain Capital raised $200M for its newest fund while Coinfund raised a better-than-expected $152 million.

Over $350 million has been raised by crypto venture capital firms Polychain Capital and Coinfund, with respective reported raises of $200 million for a new investment fund and $152 million for a seed fund.

A July 18 Forbes report said Polychain’s $200 million sum was raised in the “first close” of its fourth investment fund, according to sources familiar with the matter. The close means Polychain has now signed agreements with investors and can begin issuing funding to startups and projects.

Despite the significant raise, Polychain still intends to raise $400 million in total for the new fund. Additionally, Polychain let go of three members of its research team due to its new investing priorities.

Polychain currently manages a total of three funds with approximately $2.6 billion in assets under management, according to Pitchbook data.

Despite VC funding for crypto projects declining consistently for over a year, VC firm Coinfund also raised $152 million for its fourth seed fund, according to a July 18 Bloomberg report.

July is CoinFund’s 8th anniversary, celebrating the journey of @jbrukh @flexthought and team from kitchen table to cap table. We’re thrilled to bolster this milestone with the announcement that CoinFund has closed its $158M Seed IV Fund to back the leaders of the new internet
pic.twitter.com/6kwBFuIHiy
— CoinFund (@coinfund_io) July 18, 2023

Coinfund CEO Jake Brukhman said the company had its sights set on raising $125 million but managed to rake in an additional $27 million due to a resurgence of interest in the industry.

The total volume of venture funding for crypto and Web3 startups has declined by 76% from this time last year, according to data from business analytics firm Crunchbase.

*The total sum of venture funding and number of deals for crypto startups in the last two years. Source: Crunchbase*

Investors have reportedly grown wary of the crypto sector, following on from the collapse of Do Kwon’s Terra Money ecosystem, Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX and a number of other high-profile projects over the span of the last two years.

This has caused a retreat into more traditional market sectors and many venture capitalists have become cautious of new investments across the board, with the only notable exception being artificial intelligence.

As of Jan. 1, the AI industry had seen in excess of $12 billion dollars in venture funding as investors race to capitalize on the nascent sector.

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‘Performing as expected’ — Aptos Labs defends day 1 criticism

October 18, 2022 Coin Telegraph

APT coin

Aptos’ blockchain claims to handle three times the amount of transactions per second than Solana but day one of its launch saw the network transacting a much lower amount.

After four years of development and millions in funding, the layer-1 blockchain Aptos (APT) finally launched its mainnet on Oct. 17, albeit to somewhat mixed reception.

The proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain has seen millions invested in it from venture capital firms and has previously claimed the ability to process 160,000 transactions per second (TPS).

However, some members of the community have pointed out that the claimed TPS is falling far short of expectations on the mainnet.

According to Aptos’ blockchain explorer, the network is seeing around 4 TPS at the time of writing, while some users on Twitter have reported not being able to send transactions.

Others on Twitter noticed the Aptos Discord was closed for a few hours after the launch of the mainnet, accusing the team was attempting to stop discussion around potential launch issues.

Cointelegraph reached out to Aptos for comment and was directed to a “Day one update” tweet by Aptos on Oct. 18.

In the tweet, Aptos said the network is “performing as expected” with activity increasing as more ecosystem participants join. Cointelegraph was able to view a variety of transactions from users using its blockchain explorer.

Day one update:
Today has been exciting. Thank you for all the support!

The Aptos network has been performing as expected and will see increased activity as ecosystem projects onboard and get going.
— Aptos (@AptosLabs) October 18, 2022

Aptos also said it closed comments on its Discord and Telegram channels to “protect the community from scams” and they will “return to normal when appropriate.”

The tokenomics of Aptos is not yet publicly available, leading some to cite concerns that cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance and FTX are listing its token without such information available to their customers.

Aptos has seen millions invested from venture capital firms, with the most recent round of funding in July netting Aptos Labs $150 million. A prior round in March raised $200 million with participants including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), FTX Ventures and Coinbase Ventures.

Aptos Labs was created by former Meta employees Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, who were involved in the failed Diem blockchain project, which wound down in February of this year and sold its intellectual property and other assets.

The blockchain is built on a programming language originally developed for the defunct Meta-built Diem blockchain.

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Twitch co-founder raises $24M for Web3 gaming firm Metatheory

May 17, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Twitch co-founder raises M for Web3 gaming firm Metatheory

Blockchain Game

The funding round led by Web3-focused venture capital firms will be used for upcoming nonfungible tokens, comics and a play-to-earn game slated for late 2022.

Web3 gaming and entertainment company Metatheory founded by Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin has raised $24 million in a Series A funding round on Monday.

The round was led by crypto capital venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from Pantera Capital, the venture arm of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, FTX Ventures, and other venture firms, according to the announcement.

Metatheory was launched in November 2021 around one year after Lin left Twitch, where he wrote in a Medium article at the time that he was creating the gaming company and also a blockchain game called DuskBreakers. Lin was quoted in this week’s announcement as saying:

“Building immersive digital experiences has always been a passion of mine, and after stepping away from Twitch to explore what’s next in the industry, I truly believe blockchain will open the door to even more possibilities and have a major impact in the gaming, storytelling and community building space.”

ICYMI: Today we're excited to announce a $24M Series A Round in Metatheory, our parent company.

A big TY to: @a16z @PanteraCapital @FTX_Official
Breyer Capital @jimihendrixlive @MeritCircle_IO @Globalcoinrsrch @Sfermion_@daedalus_angels @dragonfly_cap @rechargecapital
— DuskBreakers (@DuskBreakers) May 16, 2022

DuskBreakers was released in December 2021 with the art designed by the former lead illustrator at Twitch. The Ethereum-based game implemented a “play-to-mint” model for its first 10,000 nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Those looking to grab an NFT have to play an arcade-type game to validate their entry onto a whitelist.

The DuskBreakers team plans to release comics and animations to continue its storyline, andditional NFTs and content are in the works at Metatheory with a play-to-earn game set for launch in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Lin is not the only Twitch co-founder with an interest in gaming NFTs. In December 2021 Justin Kan, another co-founder of Twitch, launched the Fractal NFT marketplace which focuses on blockchain gaming tokens saying that “NFTs are the future of gaming.”

Blockchain gaming is gaining interest from titans of the traditional gaming industry. Most recently, Square Enix revealed in its earnings report that it will expand NFTs into more of its games in 2022.

Microsoft’s CEO said the development of metaverse platforms was a key reason for the $69 billion acquisition of gaming giant Activision Blizzard and Sega is looking to integrate cloud technology NFTs as part of its new Super Game project, which connects its different games to each other.

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