VC monthly report: The financing amount in May reached its lowest point since January this year, with Worldcoin taking the lead

Jun 02, 2023

Author: WuBlockchain

According to statistics from RootData, there were a total of 93 publicly announced investment projects in May. This represents a 13% decrease compared to the previous month (107 projects in April 2023) and a 40% decrease compared to the same period last year (155 projects in May 2022). Please note that not all financing is announced in the same month, so the above statistics may increase in the future. Here are the primary industry classifications:

In the crypto market in May, infrastructure projects accounted for approximately 29% of the financing, DeFi accounted for approximately 18%, CeFi accounted for approximately 6%, and NFT/GameFi accounted for approximately 26%.

The total financing amount in May was $760 million, which is a 7% decrease compared to the previous month ($820 million in April 2023) and a 66% decrease compared to May 2022 ($2.23 billion). The funding rounds exceeding $20 million are as follows:

The technology company Tools for Humanity, behind Worldcoin, has raised $115 million in Series C financing, with Blockchain Capital leading the round and participation from a16z and others. The project claims to have 2 million users, and the funds will be used for the development and growth of the Worldcoin project and World App. Worldcoin was founded by OpenAI CEO Altman and Alex Blania in 2019, with plans to create a global identification system using iris scanning technology, which will be used for the free usage of their own global currency, Worldcoin.

Founded in 2022, Auradine is an infrastructure solutions provider that focuses on developing cutting-edge technologies such as privacy, zero-knowledge proofs, and artificial intelligence. In this funding round, led by Celesta Capital and Mayfield, other investors include Cota Capital, DCVC, and Stanford University. As part of the investment, Sriram Viswanathan from Celesta and Navin Chaddha from Mayfield will join Auradine’s board of directors.

Cryptocurrency wallet company Magic raised $52 million in a funding round led by PayPal Ventures, valuing the company slightly below $500 million. Magic has gained recognition by building whitelist versions that allow enterprise customers to provide wallets to their customers at scale. Magic’s founder and CEO, Sean Li, stated that the company aims to provide Web3 tools that can be accessed through a Web2-style interface familiar to customers.

Bitcoin technology and financial services company River Financial completed a $35 million Series B financing round, with Kingsway Capital leading the round. Other investors include Peter Thiel, Goldcrest, Cygni, M13, Valor Equity Partners, Esas Ventures, and Alarko Ventures. River announced the launch of its enterprise service, River Lightning Services (RLS), last year to help developers bring stablecoins and other assets to the Bitcoin network using the Lightning Network developed by Lightning Labs.

Emerging Bitcoin mining firm Cormint raised $30 million in Series A equity financing. This round was jointly led by the company’s president, Jamie McAvity, and Nav Sooch, Chairman of Silicon Labs. The funding will enable Cormint to rapidly scale its self-owned computing power at its flagship location in Fort Stockton, with the goal of reaching 2.4EH of self-mining power by the end of 2024.

Web3 startup Story Protocol secured a $29.3 million seed funding round led by a16z, with participation from Hashed and others. The funds will be used to accelerate the development of their web3 infrastructure platform. The company offers a way to create, manage, and license intellectual property on-chain, empowering creators to build narrative stories with ownership and incentives.

Cryptocurrency infrastructure company Anoma Foundation raised $25 million in its third funding round, led by CMCC Global. Other investors in this round include Electric Capital, Delphi Digital, and more. The new funds will be used for further development, research, ecosystem expansion, and strategic partnerships for the Anoma architecture. Currently, Anoma Foundation oversees Namada, a privacy multi-chain blockchain, and Anoma,a privacy protocol.

Web3 payment and fiat aggregator Transak completed a $20 million Series A financing round led by CE Innovation Capital. Participating investors include SBI Ven Capital, Sygnum, Azimut, Third Kind Venture Capital, UOB Venture Management, Signum Capital, and many others. With this funding, Transak aims to strengthen its global coverage and enhance the development of its onboarding solutions, with a particular focus on web3 games and financial applications.

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