Venture capital funding in the crypto industry has shown signs of stagnation in recent months, with some firms struggling to close new funds — a trend highlighted by Sarah Austin, co-founder of the real-world asset (RWA) platform Titled, which raised a $1.3 million seed round earlier this year.
Despite this challenging macro environment, “Blockchain infrastructure remains the lead story in the crypto space,” said Kaden Stadelmann, chief technology officer at Komodo Platform. He noted that the key crypto themes still attracting investment include AI, decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN), tokenization, payments and RWAs.
In June, several high-profile funding deals reflected this continued interest, with decentralized finance (DeFi), trading platforms, pre-seed growth funds and projects at the intersection of digital assets and artificial intelligence all securing capital.
The latest VC Roundup takes a deeper look at these deals against a backdrop of seasonal volatility that could limit dealmaking in the near term.
Kraken-backed Rails goes live following $20M funding
Cryptocurrency exchange Rails has revealed $20 million in venture funding across two rounds, with the most recent completed in April. The company is building a trading platform that aims to combine the utility of centralized exchanges with the advantages of decentralized markets.
Rails is backed by crypto exchange Kraken, venture capital firm Slow Ventures, blockchain security firm Quantstamp and others.
Slow Ventures described Rails as a “hybrid perpetual exchange that gives professional traders the speed of a CEX without giving up custody.”
Castle Ventures leads $7M Beam fundraise
Stablecoin payment service provider Beam has closed a $7 million funding round to expand its compliance efforts and network capabilities, aiming to further bridge the gap between digital assets and traditional finance. The round was led by Castle Ventures, with additional participation from Bankless Ventures, Archetype, Arca, Verda Ventures and others.
Beam offers stablecoin payment rails for fintechs, banks and consumer platforms, and is already live on Visa Direct, Mastercard Send and the Federal Reserve’s FedNow system.
With this latest raise, Beam’s total funding now stands at $14 million. The company plans to use the new capital to expand operations in Latin America, Africa, Asia-Pacific and the European Union.
Related: Digital Asset raises $135M to scale Canton blockchain network
Frachtis debuts $20M crypto-native fund
Xavier Meegan, a former executive at staking provider Chorus One, has launched Frachtis, a $20 million pre-seed fund backed by Theta Capital, RockawayX and others. The fund will support startup founders building decentralized AI, infrastructure and consumer applications.
Frachtis has already backed eight projects at the pre-seed and seed stages, spanning DeFi and AI protocols.
Meegan said he’s drawing on his experience at Chorus One — where he led more than 40 investments — to identify the next major use cases in blockchain.
Interface Labs gets funding to build a cryptographic trust layer for AI agents
Web3 developer Inference Labs has raised $6.3 million to build a cryptographic trust layer for AI agents — an area the company describes as underdeveloped, especially in light of the recent growth in artificial intelligence tools. The funding round included backing from DACM, Delphi Ventures, Arche Capital and Lvna Capital.
Inference Labs is developing Proof of Inference, a cryptographic method that validates AI outputs using zero-knowledge proofs. Zero-knowledge technology has gained traction within the crypto ecosystem for its ability to ensure the safety and privacy of transactions.
With the new funding, Inference Labs has launched a testnet for its Proof of Inference, featuring integrations with EigenLayer and Bittensor. The mainnet launch is planned for the third quarter of this year.
Pantera Capital, Multicoin Capital lead Gradient Network seed round
Gradient Network, a company developing a decentralized AI runtime on Solana, has secured $10 million in seed funding from Pantera, Multicoin Capital and HSG. The funding will support the expansion of Gradient’s decentralized AI infrastructure, with one of its core protocols, Lattica, launching in June.
Gradient is also building Parallax, a decentralized inference engine designed to scale large language models and other AI applications.
A Gradient Network spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the company’s choice to build on Solana was a key factor in attracting investment from Pantera and Multicoin Capital.
Related: Crypto Biz: AI money rush could reshape digital asset industry
OKX and Story launch $10M innovation fund
Crypto exchange OKX and the programmable blockchain for intellectual property, Story, have launched a $10 million ecosystem fund to support startups developing innovations in IP, decentralized IP frameworks and other applications treating IP as an asset class.
Funding will be distributed through the IP token — Story’s native token that represents intellectual property rights onchain — to back use cases involving real-world IP assets, AI and data licensing, and programmable IP applications.
Story’s developer, PIP Labs, raised $80 million in a Series B round last August, co-led by a16z Crypto and Polychain Capital, bringing its total funding to $140 million.
Related: VC Roundup: Twenty One investors inject $100M into BTC treasury, Jump Crypto backs Securitize
a16z leads $33M seed round in Yupp
Blockchain startup Yupp closed a $33 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm, a16z Crypto, to build an AI evaluation platform powered by blockchain technology.
Yupp is developing a platform where users can compare outputs from leading AI models — including ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, Llama and others — and earn cryptocurrency rewards for their evaluations. The platform integrates payment services from Coinbase, Stripe, and PayPal.
The a16z team described Yupp as transforming “human judgment into a renewable economic resource.”
DeFi solutions architect Blueprint Finance raises $9.5M
Blueprint Finance, a multichain DeFi infrastructure developer, has raised an additional $9.5 million to expand its product suite, following the launch of its Ethereum-based yield platform, Concrete, and Solana-based trading and staking platform, Glow Finance. The funding round was led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Yzi Labs, VanEck, Bitpanda Ventures, BitGo, Gate Ventures and others.
The raise comes as the DeFi sector recovers from the 2022 bear market. While total value locked (TVL) across DeFi platforms has rebounded significantly from its lows, it still remains below the sector’s all-time high three years ago.
Units Network secures $10M from Nimbus Capital
Units Network, a blockchain ecosystem built on the Waves protocol, has secured a $10 million investment led by Nimbus Capital to scale its infrastructure and address key scalability and decentralization challenges in the Web3 space.
The funding will be used to expand validator capacity, enhance crosschain liquidity rails and advance Units Network’s AI roadmap.
Nimbus Capital is an investment firm backed by In On Capital, which manages $1.2 billion in assets.
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