Lido raises $70M. Praxis Society raises $15M. Rarify raises $10M. Nested raises $7.5M.
We want to acknowledge the members of our community and all people impacted by the war on Ukraine. We stand with Ukraine during this devastating moment in history. We send love, support, and hope from all across the world.
Well, totally unrelated to international conflicts & politics, a few days ago we announced the launch of our 7th European Blockchain Convention, which will take place in sunny Barcelona on June 26-28, 2022.
After two years of zoom meetings and working from home, it is awesome to get back to business in person!
An now, let’s dig into this week’s news.
Recap of the Week
FC Barcelona Plans to Enter the Metaverse and Launch NFTs
UkraineDAO raises over $6M via NFT sale to aid Ukrainian citizens
Billboard has partnered with Universal Music Group (UMG) to launch an NFT collection
The Sandbox Metaverse hits 2M users
Bitcoin mining difficulty drops for the first time this year
Ukraine has received $37M in tracked crypto donations so far
Two Venezuelan were arrested on suspicion of hacking the crypto exchange Bancar and stealing around $1M.
35 former ConsenSys employees are suing the company over serious irregularities.
ICE poker, the play-to-earn poker platform, makes up 30% of Decentraland's users
Latest Funding Rounds in Crypto
🔹 Lido Finance raises $70M · Founded in 2020 · Cayman Islands
Lido Finance offers a liquid staking solution for Ethereum 2.0, allowing users to stake their ETH with no lockups or minimum deposits
The firm will use the funds to further support the adoption of decentralized staking solutions for Ethereum 2.0
Round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
🔹 Praxis Society raises $15M in Series A · Founded in 2017 · US
Praxis’s objective is to build a city-cryptostate. The company seeks to build a city "around the value of vitality".
The firm will use the funds to focus heavily on functional architecture and environmental technology
Round led by Paradigm Capital, Sam Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research, and Three Arrows Capital
🔹 Rarify has raised $10 million in Series A · Founded in 2021
Rarify is an API platform to easily create, manage and verify NFT digital assets.
The firm intends plans to scale up its team and launch new products with its partners. The company aims to simplify NFT buying and selling
Rarify is also working on a data API that can track NFTs across multiple blockchains, verify a user’s NFT profile picture, and gauge the value of specific NFTs.
Round led by Pantera Capital. The round was raised at valuation of $100M
🔹 Nested raises $7.5M in Series A · Founded in 2021 · Switzerland
Nested is a social trading platform that enables users to create and invest in“financial NFTs".
Nested also enables users to easily build portfolios of tokens, track their performance, add, sell and swap tokens, and sell the underlying value of said portfolios at any time.
The funds will be used to build out Nested’s team and introduce new product enhancements, such as portfolio leaderboards, staking, lending of the underlying assets, decentralized limit orders…
Round led by macro and digital asset investor Alan Howard
🔹 Tenderly raises $40M in Series B · Founded in 2018 · Serbia
Tenderly is an Ethereum developer platform that aims to help people build blockchain products easily
The company says that it works with the majority of the top 100 ethereum projects. Thousands of developers from apps such as Uniswap, Yearn Finance, Circle, Chainlink, Gnosis, Instadapp and NFT marketplace OpenSea use Tenderly to monitor the health of the apps and smart contracts.
Round led by Spark Capital
Acquisitions
🔹 Shift4 Payments acquires The Giving Block
Acquisition of $54M
Shift4 Payments is a leading provider in secure payment processing & technology solutions
The Giving Block is an online platform that allows over 1,300 nonprofit organizations and charities to accept crypto donations
Shift4 will invest further in The Giving Block’s successful strategy while also pursuing a $45+ billion embedded cross-sell opportunity by bundling crypto donation capabilities with traditional card acceptance
🔹 Bharti Airtel acquires Alqilliz
Terms were undisclosed
Airtel is a global telecommunications company that provides mobile, voice, and data solutions
Aqilliz builds blockchain solutions in digital marketing that restores the balance between brands, platforms, and consumers
The acquisition's aim is Airtel to deploy Aqilliz’s blockchain technologies at scale across its fast growing Adtech, digital entertainment and digital marketplace offerings.