Venture companies will push Web3 forward even if they have a macro head

Several inflation measures, including the consumer price index and the personal consumption expenditures index, have moderated in recent months, adding to confidence that US spending pressures are moderating and gradually returning to the Federal Reserve's 2% target.

However, macroeconomic factors are influencing the investment strategies of venture firms in the Web3 space. “We believe that when investing in early-stage companies with long investment horizons, you can't let macro dictate your investment pace,” said BITKRAFT Ventures partner Carlos Pereira.

According to Perera, the current economic situation has little effect on the race cycle. Instead, they are more likely to influence the Series A rounds. “In worse markets, it may be a better time to be a late-stage, Series A-type investor,” as it gets “cheaper” to act on additional validation points, compared to warmer markets, where those businesses can be seen closer to launch. token, and in turn become more expensive,” he said.

A partner at BITKRAFT Ventures' crypto strategy focused on web3 communication and interactive entertainment is “an inch wide, a mile deep.” Some of BITKRAFT's recent investments include “exciting games” – many non-competitive and hard-core games and open-source AI models powered by blockchain technology.

This edition of Cointelegraph's VC Roundup features some of the startups that raised capital in July.

Mira closed a $9M seed round led by BITKRAFT Ventures, Framework Ventures

Mira, a decentralized infrastructure platform for artificial intelligence, has closed a $9 million seed round led by BITKRAFT Ventures and Framework Ventures with participation from Accel, Crucible, Follies Ventures, Mechanism Capital, SALT Fund and prominent angel investors. Mira provides user-friendly SDKs to explore the complexity of AI infrastructure. The funds will be used to expand globally and develop the Mira network and ecosystem of applications, including Cloak, an AI for crypto. The Mira API Marketplace allows developers to access open source AI resources and create Mira Flows for usage-based payments, the company said in a statement.

Astria Raises $12.5M in Strategic Funding Led by Diba, Placeholder VC

Sequencing Layer startup Astria has raised $12.5 million in strategic funding led by dba and Placeholder VC, with participation from RockawayX and returning investors. The funding will be used to advance Asteria's sequencing layer and Asria stack, enabling license-free deployment without a central sequencer, the company said in a statement. The round saw contributions from Maven11, 1kx, Fiment Capital, Batu and angel investors.

The Asteria Sequencing Layer provides a decentralized network for transaction ordering across multiple coils, while the Asteria Stack provides tools for deploying Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) coils. A Celestia-based package forma has been launched on the Astria Stack. As of May, more than 42,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been created or purchased on the forma, Astria said.

Compute Labs has paid $3M in pre-seed to deposit GPUs on Solana.

Tokenized real-world asset startup Compute Labs has raised $3 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed funding round led by Protocol Labs, including Blockchain Coinvestors, MH Ventures, OKX Ventures, Symbolic Capital and prominent crypto leaders like Sandeep of Polygon Nails and Ilya Polosukin of protocol Formed by the NVadi Inception VC Alliance, Compute Labs seeks to provide open access to simulate enterprise-grade GPUs onchain and compute revenue through a GPU restacking solution.

The funding will be used to build the core project team and complete the first GPU Vulnerable Token (GNFT) build by mid-July.

BOB Raises $1.6M for Startup Incubation

Hybrid Layer-2 Solution BOB, or “Build on Bitcoin,” has raised additional funding to support its incubator program. According to the announcement, the startup received $1.6 million in funding in a round led by Ledger Ventures and angel investors, which included individuals from BlackRock, Rare, Ordinals, Aave, Curve, Threshold, Magic Eden, Mechanism, Injective, Vessel Capital, Babylon, and Centrifuge, among others.

The funding will be allocated to the BOB Incubator, which focuses on new and innovative startups working in the Bitcoin infrastructure and BOB DApp space. According to the startup, the initiative seeks to bridge the gap between Bitcoin's global adoption and Ethereum's innovation power. In March, BOB closed a $10 million seed funding round led by Castle Island Ventures.

Dora closes $5.5M funding co-led by Dragonfly, Lemniscap.

Multichain search engine Dora in partnership with Drabotfly Capital and Lemniscap, along with Robot Ventures, Ethereal Ventures, Maven11, Arch Capital and other angel investors, has closed $5.5 million in seed funding. The funding will be used to expand Dora's search and cross-chain transaction features and collaboration with blockchain networks. Dora is said to support more than 20 chains, including Ethereum and Arbitrum, a multi-chain block explorer, APIs for token and NFT data, structured data structures, transaction functions and a built-in wallet.