Web3’s infrastructure, the tokenization of everything, attracts investors

Venture funding for crypto startups topped $1 billion in April, marking the second consecutive month above the milestone this year with 161 investment rounds, as investors showed renewed interest amid the bull market.

Key trends attracting the attention of businesses include decentralized infrastructure, institutional adoption solutions, and virtualization of everything, said Xiao Xiao, partner at HashKey Capital. In written comments to Cointelegraph, Xiao discussed HashKey's investment priorities at the time:

“We focus on capital investment and liquid investment. For capital investment, we choose either late-stage projects, which will be liquid very soon, or very early-stage projects, which have long-term value and target the next cycle. For liquid investments, some alternative with low risk and stable returns. We make investments.

Another focus for HashKey is the integration of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology. “Advanced data analytics powered by AI is driving greater operational efficiency and security by providing deeper market insights, advanced fraud detection and optimized business strategies,” Xiao said.

Highlights of recent funding rounds include Polymarket's $70 million funding – led by Peter Thiel's venture capital firm, Founders Fund and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin – and Humanity Protocol becoming a unicorn after recently raising a $30 million valuation.

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

Colosseum invested 2.5 million dollars in pre-seed for the accelerator program

Colosseum, the autonomous ecosystem for the Solana Network, has announced the first group of projects to join its Accelerator program. The projects were selected from the winners of the Renaissance Hackathon, Solana's largest. The Renaissance Hackathon saw 8,300 participants in 1,071 teams. Out of 34 Hackathon winners, 10 projects were selected, each receiving $250,000 in pre-seed capital. The program will conclude with a virtual demo day where the projects will be pitched to investors and access Colosseum's mentor and founder network. Since the first Solana Hackathon in October 2020, event participation has increased, with a 1,522% increase in project submissions. The selected projects are Ore, Urani, Debinker, DeCharge, Torque, SunLegend, MeshMap, BlockMesh, Banger, and Rakuray.

Volta announced $4.1M in seed funding for institutional smart wallets

VoltaCirc, a multi-signature, non-custodial smart wallet, has raised $4.1 million in seed funding from Fika Ventures, Haven Ventures and other investors. The money will be used to start the infrastructure services. The startup offers cryptocurrency self-governance to businesses, asset managers and banks, with multi-signature wallet management and policy controls applied directly on-chain. Volta was founded by George Melica, chief technology officer of sFOX, and Daniel Kim, former head of capital markets at Maple Finance.

Hemera raised $2.6M for Web 3 Data Management

Hemera announced $2.6 million in funding led by LIF Capital and Nomad Capital, with participation from SNZ and Chainlink. According to Hedera, angel investors in the round include the founders of ZetaChain and Sending Labs, Wish founder Danny Zhang and Microsoft AI executive Harry Shum. The funding will be used to develop a decentralized protocol that uses AI to query data on-chain, allowing Web3-optimized Large Language Model (LLM) insights. The official beta version of the Hemera protocol was recently released along with the SocialScan demo app.

Zeta Markets Raises $5M for Solana Layer-2

Zeta Markets, a Solana-based on-chain protocol, has raised $5 million in a strategic funding round, bringing its total funding to $13.5 million. Electric Capital led the round with DACM, Selini Capital, Airtree Ventures and angel investors Anatoly Yakovenko, Mert Mumtaz and Richard Wu, among others. The funding will help Zeta Group build the first decentralized financial layer-2 on Solana, according to a statement. The protocol seeks to achieve the performance of a centralized exchange while maintaining the security and self-protection behavior of a decentralized exchange. Zeta Group says that the protocol has more than 100,000 monthly active users and has passed the mark of 6 billion dollars in total trading volume.

Moso pledges $2M for e-commerce, crypto integration

Moso, a platform that combines online shopping with cryptocurrency rewards, has successfully raised $2 million in seed funding. The round saw participation from Symbolic Capital, Dao5, Coinlist, Polygon Ventures and several strategic angel investors. The startup has reportedly partnered with more than 2,000 top retailers, including Walmart, eBay and Shopee, which will allow users to earn cryptocurrency rewards while shopping. “Our platform is about bringing Web3 access to new users in the space, simplifying their interactions with technology and decentralizing technology in the traditional way of online shopping,” said Blake Capoza, co-founder of Moso.

Crestal closes $2M pre-seed round

Crestal Network has successfully raised $2 million in pre-seed funding from various venture capital firms including Lingfeng Capital, Cogitent Ventures, Kyro Ventures, Veris Ventures, Smape Capital, MH Ventures, Layer Labs, Pragma Ventures, Builder Capital, NxGen. Spectacle, Artemis Capital, and Quant Ventures. Behind the startup are Eric Chen, former head of engineering at Tron, and Marouen Zeleg, former business director of Polygon. The company targets Web3 developers with a platform of modular services that facilitate decentralized back-end design and deployment. The funding will be used to accelerate the development of Crestal Network's Testnet, expand the team and increase community engagement.

Zest Protocol has raised $3.5M in seed funding led by Tim Draper.

Zest Protocol, a Lending Protocol for Bitcoin, Raises $3.5 Million Led by Tim Draper Draper Associates with Binance Labs, Flow Traders, Trust Machines, Asymmetric, Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Gravity Fund, Primal Capital, Hyperrithm, Mitcon Crypto, Tykhe Block Ventures, Elixir Capital and others. The Zest protocol aims to enable BTC holders to deploy their assets on on-chain lending markets. According to Zest, it will use the upcoming Stacks Nakamoto and sBTC blockchain improvements to create a Bitcoin-native lending experience. “I don't just want to hold BTC – I want to use it!” Tim Draper in his statement about the funding round.