Highlights of this Period
According to incomplete statistics from PANews, last week (1.19-1.25), there were 13 blockchain investment and financing events globally, with a total funding scale exceeding $222 million. The overview is as follows:
- DeFi announced 5 investment and financing events, including fintech and asset tokenization company Superstate completing an $82.5 million Series B funding round;
- Web3+AI track announced 3 investment and financing events, including AI proxy infrastructure and application layer Warden completing a $4 million strategic financing;
- Infrastructure & Tools announced 2 investment and financing events, including Bitcoin payment startup ZBD completing a $40 million Series C funding round led by Blockstream Capital;
- Centralized Finance announced 3 investment and financing events, including Argentina-based fintech company Pomelo completing a $55 million Series C funding round led by Kaszek and Insight Partners.
DeFi
Fintech and Asset Tokenization Company Superstate Completes $82.5 Million Series B Funding
Fintech and asset tokenization company Superstate announced the completion of an $82.5 million Series B funding round, led by Bain Capital Crypto and Distributed Global, with participation from Haun Ventures, Brevan Howard Digital, Galaxy Digital, Bullish, ParaFi, and others. The company plans to use this round of funding to build a comprehensive on-chain issuance layer on Ethereum and Solana blockchains for issuing and trading SEC-registered stocks. Its goal is to leverage blockchain technology to make fundraising and listing processes more efficient.
Superstate currently manages over $1.23 billion in assets and operates two tokenized funds. As an SEC-registered transfer agent, the company supports listed companies to directly issue and sell digital stocks to investors on public blockchains via its “Opening Bell” platform by the end of 2025, enabling real-time management of issuance, settlement, and ownership records.
River Completes $12 Million Strategic Financing, Participated by Maelstrom Fund, The Spartan Group, and Others
River announced the completion of a $12 million strategic financing round, with investors including Tron DAO, Justin Sun, Maelstrom Fund founded by Arthur Hayes, The Spartan Group, and several NASDAQ-listed US and European companies. This funding will support River’s expansion into EVM and non-EVM ecosystems, including networks like TRON and Sui, and continue building on-chain liquidity infrastructure.
Tokenization Risk Startup Cork Completes $5.5 Million Seed Round, Led by a16z and CSX
Startup Cork announced the completion of a $5.5 million seed round, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), CSX, and Road Capital, with participation from 432 Ventures, BitGo Ventures, Cooley, DEPO Ventures, Funfair Ventures, G20 Group, Gate Labs, Hyperithm Gate, IDEO Ventures, PEER VC, Stake Capital, and WAGMI Ventures.
Cork aims to build a “programmable risk layer” to make the risks embedded in real-world assets transparent and tradable through tokenization. Its infrastructure allows asset managers, issuers, and others to create customized swap markets to improve redemption liquidity, risk transparency, and market confidence of on-chain assets. The tool can also be used to assess risks of stablecoins, staked tokens, and other crypto-native products. The team plans to launch the first production-grade risk markets in the coming months and expand cooperation with treasuries and asset issuers.
HyperLend Announces $1.7 Million Funding to Date, Participated by RockawayX and Others
Lending platform HyperLend announced the distribution of its HPL token economic model, with 30.14% allocated for ecosystem growth and incentives, 25% for genesis distribution, 22.5% to core contributors, 17.36% to strategic investors, and 5% reserved for liquidity. The protocol has completed $1.7 million in funding, with investors including RockawayX, No Limit Holdings, Nucleus, Duplicate Capital, Dumpster, and others. Strategic investors received 10% equity at token generation event (TGE), with a 4-month lock-up period, and the remaining shares will be gradually unlocked over 2 years.
Saturn Announces $800K Funding, Participated by YZi Labs, Sora Ventures, and Others
Saturn announced the completion of $800,000 in funding, with participation from YZi Labs, Sora Ventures, and several well-known crypto angel investors. The funds will be used to develop USDat, a stablecoin protocol supported by Bitcoin offering over 11% yield. Saturn stated that returns are provided via Strategy perpetual preferred stock STRC, while unlocking global on-chain digital credit access.
AI
AI Proxy Infrastructure and Application Layer Warden Completes $4 Million Strategic Financing
Warden, an infrastructure and application layer project targeting AI proxies (Agents), announced the completion of $4 million in strategic financing, with a valuation of $200 million. The financing was participated by strategic partners and ecosystem contributors including 0G, Messari, and Venice.AI. The funding aims to accelerate product development and expand AI proxy capabilities in trading, automation, and programmable wealth. Warden is building a full-stack proxy internet, including next-generation proxy crypto wallets.
AI Native Content Creation Engine AKEDO Completes $5 Million Seed Round, Participated by Sfermion and Others
AI-native content creation engine and publishing platform AKEDO announced the completion of a $5 million seed round, led by Karatage, with investors from gaming, AI, and crypto sectors including Sfermion, Collab + Currency, MARBLEX, Seed Club, The Open Platform, TON Ventures, Gagra Ventures, Kenetic Capital, Metalabs Ventures, and others.
AKEDO aims to build a “mood encoding” platform driven by multi-agent AI systems, designed to significantly improve game and content development efficiency through collaborative AI proxies. The platform allows users to create game collections, generate AIGC content, and plans to support one-click release of collection tokens in the future, unlocking multiple revenue streams for creators and protocols. The CEO stated that the funds will be used to expand its multi-agent infrastructure.
Lazbubu, an AI Ecosystem Project on BNB Chain, Completes Strategic Round Funding Led by Metis
Lazbubu, an AI ecosystem project on BNB Chain, announced the completion of a strategic round led by Metis, with participation from Hotcoin Labs, Honey Capital, APUS Capital, and Becker Ventures. The funds will be used for core product development, global user growth, ecosystem partnerships, and further refinement of the DAT (Data Anchoring Token) mechanism.
Lazbubu is an on-chain AI proxy based on the DAT mechanism, which records user interaction data (such as conversations and decisions) to enable personalized growth. All data is anchored on BNB Chain, ensuring continuous verifiability and user control. Its testnet phase attracted over 80,000 users and generated more than 1 million interactions.
The DAT mechanism supports real-time on-chain tokenization of AI interaction behaviors, allowing users to view, transfer, or combine related data. Future plans include expanding multi-modal interactions, cross-chain compatibility, and launching community governance.
AI Startup Humans& Completes $480 Million Seed Round, Valued at $4.48 Billion
Humans&, a human-centered AI company founded by former members of Anthropic, xAI, and Google, completed a $480 million seed round, with a valuation of $44.8 billion. Investors include Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, SV Angel, GV, and Emerson Collective. The company is dedicated to developing AI tools that enhance human collaboration, with team members from OpenAI, Meta, AI2, MIT, focusing on multi-agent reinforcement learning, AI memory, and user understanding, aiming to reconstruct AI model training and interaction methods.
(This financing is not included in this week’s data statistics)
Nvidia Invests $150 Million in AI Inference Company Baseten
AI inference startup Baseten has completed a $300 million funding round, reaching a valuation of $5 billion, nearly double its previous valuation. The round was led by venture firms IVP and Alphabet’s independent growth fund CapitalG, with Nvidia participating and investing $150 million as part of the deal. This transaction highlights Nvidia’s active positioning in AI inference startups. As industry focus shifts from training models to large-scale deployment and inference (generating outputs based on inputs), Nvidia is increasing investments in related startups and continuing to invest in its own AI chip customers.
(This financing is not included in this week’s data statistics)
Infrastructure & Tools
Bitcoin Payment Startup ZBD Completes $40 Million Series C Funding Led by Blockstream Capital
Bitcoin payment startup ZBD announced the completion of a $40 million Series C funding round, led by Blockstream Capital (which invested $36 million), with other investors and company valuation undisclosed. ZBD is headquartered in New Jersey, mainly providing payment software solutions for video games, supporting multiple transaction types including Bitcoin. The company does not involve NFTs or crypto-based gameplay but focuses on using blockchain as a payment channel to help game developers and players establish direct financial relationships, enabling transfers and in-game rewards. Currently, it has 70 employees and has partnered with 55 games in 2025. The funding will be used to expand its payment product suite over the next year.
Bitcoin Native L1 Protocol Bitway Completes $4.44 Million Seed Round Led by TRON DAO
Bitcoin-native Layer 1 protocol and infrastructure platform Bitway announced the completion of a $4.44 million seed round, led by TRON DAO, with participation from HTX Ventures, and others. To date, Bitway has raised over $5.8 million from institutional investors. After its initial seed round, it completed a targeted strategic financing round, valuing Bitway at $100 million.
Founded by former Binance team members, Bitway was previously incubated through YZi Labs’ EASY Residency program and launched via Binance Incubator. It has two core products: the on-chain wealth management platform Bitway Earn and the Layer1 application chain Bitway Chain for payments and financing solutions.
Centralized Finance
Argentina-based Payment Startup Pomelo Completes $55 Million Series C, to Launch Stablecoin Credit Card
Argentina-based fintech Pomelo completed a $55 million Series C funding round led by Kaszek and Insight Partners, aiming to deepen its presence in Latin America and expand globally. The funds will be used to grow its credit card payment processing business in Mexico and Brazil, and to launch a global credit card settled with stablecoin USDC. Pomelo also plans to develop cross-border real-time and intelligent proxy payment systems for traditional banks and large international clients, with partners including Visa, Mastercard, Binance, Western Union, and others.
Dutch Cryptocurrency Platform Finst Completes €8 Million Series A Funding
Dutch crypto platform Finst completed €8 million Series A funding, led by Endeit Capital, with existing investors including Eelko van Kooten (founder of Spinnin’ Records) and Mark Franse (co-founder of DEGIRO). This brings Finst’s total funding to €15 million.
Founded in 2023, the platform has obtained a license from the Dutch Financial Markets Authority (AFM) for crypto asset service providers, serving retail and institutional clients across 30 European countries. The company states that the funds will be used to expand in Europe, develop new products and services, including increasing staking coverage and market-leading interest rates, adding asset options and platform features, and developing more products for institutions and professional users.
“Crypto as a Service” Platform CheckSig Completes €3.5 Million Series A Funding
European “Crypto as a Service” platform CheckSig announced the completion of a €3.35 million funding at a valuation of €62 million, with total funding reaching €6.2 million. The company obtained a MiCAR license this year and provides crypto custody, trading, and tax withholding services, aiming to offer secure and transparent crypto services for individual and institutional investors.
