This Week's Largest Funding Round
Flying Tulip raised $200 million in a Seed round from investors including: Brevan Howard Digital, CoinFund, DWF Labs, FalconX, Hypersphere, Lemniscap, Nascent, Republic, Selini Capital, Sigil Fund, SIG DTI (a Susquehanna International Group company), Tioga Capital Partners, Virtuals Protocol.
The platform positions itself as a full-stack on-chain exchange, integrating spot trading, derivatives, lending, stablecoins, and insurance into a unified cross-margin system. Its unique "On-Chain Redemption Right" allows investors to burn their FT tokens to recover their original capital, providing downside protection while retaining upside potential. Team allocations are not granted initially but are acquired through open market buybacks, aligning incentives with long-term performance.
Pre-seed & Seed Financing
Cheeze raised an undisclosed amount in a Seed round from investors including: Crypto.com Capital, X ventures, Arcadia, BABs Agency, Black Dragon, DCI Capital (Dutch Crypto Investors), MH Ventures, Newman Capital, OSF, Brian D Evans, Adrian Lai.
Cheeze is a blockchain-based rewards application that turns everyday spending into earning opportunities. Users can automatically earn stable $Points on eligible transactions at over 1 million merchants globally by linking their bank card or crypto wallet. Points can be redeemed for USDC, spent via the Cheeze Mastercard, or reinvested into the ecosystem. Cheeze blends fiat and crypto rails, offering instant notifications, loyalty features, referral rewards, and real-time redemption opportunities.
BaseVol raised $3 million in a Seed round from investors including: Neoclassic Capital*, Virtuals Ventures, Baboon VC, Woori Technology Investment (WTIC).
BaseVol is an options trading platform built on the Base blockchain, offering everything from simple 0DTE (Zero Days to Expiration) trades to complex structured strategy vaults. Its goal is to democratize options trading – combining a gamified trading experience for retail users with institutional-grade derivatives infrastructure. Its "Genesis Vault" product hints at leverage and vault-based yield mechanisms.
Flying Tulip (appears again) – As mentioned above, completed a $200 million Seed round.
Drake Exchange raised $1 million in a Seed round from investor: CMS Holdings*.
Drake Exchange is a decentralized on-chain perpetual exchange built on the Monad network, combining CEX functionality with DeFi transparency. It offers a full limit order book, cross-margin trading, collateral swapping, and fallback AMM liquidity, enhancing trading depth and execution efficiency. Users can trade with up to 50x leverage, become liquidity providers via "Earn", and participate in delta-neutral yield strategies using automated vaults.
Nolan raised $2 million in a Seed round from investors including: HTX Ventures (formerly Huobi Ventures), KuCoin Ventures, Gate Labs, Ledger Capital, IBC Group, Gem Capital, Fides Capital Group Limited.
Nolan is a Meme + AI-driven Web3 ecosystem blending viral culture with institutional-grade AI insights and DeFi tools. It serves meme communities and retail investors, turning chaos into transparent opportunities through AI-powered whale tracking, sentiment analysis, and prediction markets. Its community-driven Launchpad supports the next wave of meme projects, while the $NOLAN token unlocks advanced analytics, governance, and early project opportunities.
Other Funding Rounds
Lighter completed an undisclosed amount funding round from investors including: HAUN Ventures, Founders Fund, Dragonfly Capital, Robot Ventures, a16z crypto, Lightspeed, Coatue, CRV, Abstract Ventures, SV Angel, 8VC.
Lighter is a zk-rollup perpetual protocol offering verifiable, non-custodial trading with cryptographically guaranteed fairness. Built on Arbitrum, it combines CEX performance with DeFi transparency. Features include on-chain verifiable order matching, liquidation execution, and seamless integration with aggregators like 1inch.
Novastro raised $2 million in a Public Sale round.
Novastro is a Layer 2 blockchain platform focused on the tokenization, trading, and yield generation of Real World Assets (RWA). It leverages AI-driven analytics and integrates MoveVM with EigenLayer AVS to offer Ethereum-level security and scalability, fostering interoperability between Move and EVM ecosystems. Its core is the RUSD stablecoin, backed by real assets like government bonds, gold, and real estate.
Tea Protocol raised $3 million in a Public Sale round.
tea is a decentralized protocol for rewarding Open Source Software (OSS) developer contributions, enhancing software supply chain sustainability and security. Through a novel consensus mechanism called Proof of Contribution, tea measures OSS project impact and allocates rewards.
National Bitcoin ATM was acquired by Bitcoin Depot for an undisclosed amount.
The company is a US Bitcoin ATM operator with terminals in multiple states, allowing users to instantly buy Bitcoin with cash (range $10–$15,000/day), transferred directly to their own wallet, emphasizing privacy and minimal KYC requirements.
Securitize raised an undisclosed amount from investor: ARK Invest.
Securitize is a platform for issuing and managing compliance for blockchain-based digital securities.
Yield Basis raised $5 million in a Public Sale round.
Developed by Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov, Yield Basis is an AMM-based DeFi protocol designed to eliminate impermanent loss for liquidity providers. It uses 2x leverage via crvUSD to optimize liquidity positions and tokenizes them into yield-bearing assets (ybBTC, ybETH), which can be further staked for rewards.
Lava raised $17.5 million in a funding round from investors including: Peter Jurdjevic, Bijan Tehrani, Zach White, Saurabh Gupta, Terry Angelos, Aaron Suplizo.
Lava is a financial platform that allows users to save in Bitcoin while spending in USD. Its core product is a Bitcoin-collateralized debit card.
Ethena Labs raised $14 million in a funding round from investor: MEXC Ventures.
Ethena is developing the world's first "Internet Bond" and an Ethereum-based stablecoin, USDe. The stablecoin hedges price volatility by shorting Ethereum perpetual contracts to achieve peg stability. Its savings bond offers a dollar-denominated decentralized savings instrument for global users.
Bastion Asset Management was acquired by CoinShares Ventures for an undisclosed amount.
The London-based, FCA-regulated firm is a crypto-focused alternative investment manager. Its quantitative strategy focuses on token characteristics, aiming to generate returns uncorrelated to market direction.
Ambrus Studio (E4C: Final Salvation) raised $15 million in a funding round from investor: Bolts Capital.
"E4C: Final Salvation" is poised to be the first title to integrate esports gameplay into a Web3 mobile MOBA game.
xMoney raised $21.5 million in a funding round from investors: Sui Foundation*, MultiversX.
xMoney is a licensed global payments infrastructure enabling merchants and users to transact seamlessly between fiat, crypto, and cards. It is compliant with the EU's MiCA regulation, offering payment processing, invoicing, subscriptions, and card issuance services. The ecosystem is powered by the $XMN token, featuring staking yields, fee discounts, loyalty rewards, and governance rights.
KGeN (formerly Kratos) raised $13.5 million in a funding round from investors including: Jump Crypto*, Accel, Prosus Ventures.
KGeN is a Web3-powered player reputation platform using Zero-Knowledge Machine Learning (zkML) to build verifiable, data-rich player profiles. It lets players own and showcase their gaming data and provides publishers with user acquisition and retention tools.
Talus Labs raised $10 million in a Strategic funding round from investors: Sui Foundation, Walrus Protocol.
Talus Network is a consumer-facing decentralized AI blockchain platform aiming to break the limitations of centralized AI systems. It leverages Move smart contract security and performance to support applications like DeFi, gaming, governance, and IMO (Initial Model Offering).
