INFRASTRUCTURE, DEFI AND NFTS SCORE A GOAL - FSINSIGHT

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Members Area       Crypto Funding Fridays      Infrastructure, DeFi and NFTs Score a Goal

       Crypto Funding Fridays

Infrastructure, DeFi and NFTs Score a Goal
September 24

               FSInsight Team

Key Takeaways
   NFT platforms raised a combined $933 million, and infrastructure raised $155 million in new
   funding this week

   Deal of the Week: Sorare, a soccer-NFT platform closed a $680 million Series B
   funding round
   Active investors this week include Softbank, Coinbase Ventures, and Digital
   Currency Group

Venture Capital Deals

Blockdaemon, a New York-based startup that builds blockchain nodes and other tech,
has raised $155 million at a valuation of $1.26 billion. The Series B funding was led
by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. New investors include Matrix Capital Management,
Sapphire Ventures and Morgan Creek Digital. Existing investors consist of Boldstart
Ventures, Goldman Sachs, Greenspring Associates, CoinFund, Kenetic, Kraken Ventures,
Borderless Capital, and Lerer Hippeau. (Blockdaemon Raises $155 Million in Series B
Funding).

Taker Protocol, a crypto liquidity protocol for NFTs, has raised $3 million from several
reputable investors to build new financial primitives into the burgeoning NFT market.
Taker Protocol focuses on improving the liquidity available in the NFT market. Due to
the unique non-fungible structure of NFTs, existing DeFi primitives are difficult to
integrate into the market, resulting in significant issues in terms of overall liquidity. The
value of an NFT is extremely volatile and often effectively becomes zero as no buyers
can be found at any reasonable price. Furthermore, NFTs are difficult to use
productively after purchase and often end up forgotten in the user’s wallet. The round
was led by Electric Capital, with DCG, Ascentive Assets, Dragonfly Capital, Spartan
Group, The LAO, Sfermion, and Morningstar Ventures participating as well. (Taker
Protocol Raises $3 Million to Transform NFT Liquidity and Utilization).

Cobo, a Singapore-based crypto asset management platform, raised $40 million in a
Series B funding round to accelerate the development of decentralized finance as a
service (DFaaS). The round was co-led by DST Global, A&T Capital and IMO Ventures.

The company will use its proceeds for the development of DeFi as a service (DFaaS)
infrastructure and its existing custody services such as wallet as a service (WaaS),
trading and staking as a service (StaaS). The funding will also be used to apply for
regulatory licenses to ensure strict compliance to the relevant anti-money laundering
(AML) and counter the financing of terrorism (CFT) requirements. (Cobo bags $40 million
Series B).

Latin America-based crypto services firm Ripio has raised $50 million in a new Series B
funding round. Ripio offers various services such as a wallet and crypto exchange. The
company intends to use the funds to further develop its products and teams as well as
boost international expansion. Digital Currency Group (DCG) led the funding round,
and additional investors include venture capital firm Amplo, Draper Ventures and Boost
VC among others. MercadoLibre CEO Marcos Galperin and Globant CEO Martin
Migoya also participated as individual investors. (Crypto services startup Ripio raises
$50 million in Series B funding round).

DeSo, which is short for decentralized social, is one of the most ambitious challenges
to Facebook, whose hold over data has let it build a powerful advertising machine,

and create a quasi-monopoly that includes its subsidiaries, Instagram and WhatsApp.
DeSo aims to solve these problems and introduce a new model for content distribution
by decentralizing social media the same way Bitcoin and Ethereum are decentralizing
the traditional financial system. DeSo has raised over $200 million from Silicon Valley
and crypto investors, including Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures,
Winklevoss Capital, Pantera Capital, Polychain Capital and Reddit founder Alexis
Ohanian. (Decentralized “Facebook Killer Attracts $200 Million Funding).

Dapper Labs is better known as the maker of NBA Top Shots. At Top Shot, users can buy
digital cards that represent NBA players and moments. They can then buy and sell
some of their cards to other players. The value of these digital collectibles can go up
and down over time.

The platform is based on NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. Each digital card is registered
as a unique token on a blockchain. Dapper Labs has developed Flow, a new blockchain
built for scalability and practical use cases, such as NBA Top Shot. Dapper Labs has
raised another $250 million in funding, bringing the company to a valuation of $7.6
billion. Coatue led the new investment. Existing investors include Andreessen Horowitz,
GV and Version One Ventures. Some new investors are also joining the round, such as
BOND and GIC. (Dapper Labs Raises Another $250 Million).

New Crypto Funds

Decentralized finance (DeFi) firm Kava Labs has launched a $185 million Ignition Fund
that will be used to support decentralized finance (DeFi) projects and onboard new
projects. With three protocols, $2.1 billion in assets on-chain, over 280k users, and $1.8
billion in cross-chain transactions and counting, the Kava Platform has proven itself as
a secure, accessible home for DeFi. Through its evolution, a blueprint for true scale has
emerged; one that combines technical innovation with a user-centric process to
deliver the kind of scale that is needed to bridge the gap. (Kava Expands DeFi with
$185 Million Fund).

Kavita Gupta — a former executive at ConsenSys will launch a $50 million fund called
Delta Blockchain Fund. The Fund is a strategic partner for outstanding founders
building products to scale and support a decentralized world irrespective of their chain
solution. Investors include Perle Venture, Skyvision and family offices. Other backers
include crypto executives like Diogo Monica, founder of Anchorage; Richard Ma,
founder of Quantstamp; and Samyak Jain of InstaDapp. (Fomer ConsenSys Venture
Exce launches fund).

Deal of the Week

Sorare, a soccer-focused NFT trading platform, has announced a $680 million Series B
fundraise led by SoftBank. The latest round values Sorare at $4.3 billion. Atomico,
Bessemer Ventures, D1 Capital, Eurazeo, IVP and Liontree are all investing in the startup
for the first time alongside SoftBank, with existing backers Benchmark, Accel and
Headline also participating.

Why is this a Big Deal?

Sorare lets fans trade non-fungible token (NFT) trading cards of superstar players like
Cristiano Ronaldo and Antoine Griezmann, which are underpinned by the Ethereum
blockchain. Founded in 2018, the Paris-based startup has notched $150 million in cards
sales so far this year.

The platform’s monthly active paying users grew by 34 times between the second
quarter of 2020 and the second quarter of this year, with quarterly sales up 51 times
over the same period. It currently boasts 600,000 registered users and has licensed
players from over 180 soccer organizations, including Real Madrid, Liverpool and
Juventus.

              FSInsight Team

Disclosures (show)