VC roundup: Humanity Protocol hits unicorn status, Arch Labs, others secure major funding

As a seasoned crypto investor with a few successful exits under my belt, I’m always keeping an eye on the latest developments in the blockchain space. Last week’s venture capital activities brought some exciting news for several promising projects, and I couldn’t help but share my thoughts on three of them.

As a crypto investor, I’ve noticed an uptick in crypto startups securing seed rounds and pre-A funding recently. Let’s explore some of the fortunate recipients of last week’s venture capital investments.

Humanity Protocol gets $30-million boost

The decentralized identity platform, Humanity Protocol, has achieved unicorn status, reaching a valuation of one billion dollars. This impressive feat was accomplished following the successful closure of a seed funding round, during which Kingsway Capital invested thirty million dollars.

Among the other investors were Animoca Brands, Blockchain.com, Hashed, Shima Capital, and over twenty additional industry titans.

Based on a Medium article penned by Humanity Protocol, I’ve discovered that the funds are earmarked for expanding our team and creating new products before we unveil the public testnet in the latter half of 2024.

Exciting update! Our founder Terence recently grabbed the limelight in Bloomberg Business, announcing our latest funding round worth $30 million. With a valuation of $1 billion, we’ve joined the league of crypto’s newest unicorns. Discover more about this significant milestone in our story. (Link provided)
— Humanity Protocol 🖐️ (@Humanityprot) May 15, 2024

As a crypto investor, I’m excited to share that Humanity Protocol has recently secured funding for its latest round, which follows closely on the heels of the strategic investment it received just a few months ago. This new investment will be used to develop the “human layer” for web3, enhancing the decentralized platform’s capabilities and making it more user-friendly and inclusive for all.

As a crypto investor, I’ve been fortunate enough to secure funding from various venture capital firms and individual backers for my latest project. Some of these esteemed investors include Sandeep Nailwal, the founder of Polygon, and Yat Siu, co-founder of Animoca Brands.

Arch Labs secures $7 million

As a crypto investor based in New York, I’m excited to share that Arch Labs, a local Bitcoin application platform developer, has successfully raised $7 million in seed funding. This round was spearheaded by Multicoin Capital, with valuable contributions from OKX Ventures, Portal Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, CMS Holdings, and Tangent. Together, we’re supporting Arch Labs in its mission to advance their Bitcoin-native technology.

According to reports, the company intends to utilize the raised funds primarily for employing crucial developers, initiating the Arch Network mainnet’s launch in the second half of 2024, and providing continuous backing for its application ecosystem.

As a blockchain analyst, I’d describe it this way: I’ve come across an intriguing development by Arch Labs. Instead of relying on intermediaries for Bitcoin (BTC) trading, they’re creating a “bridgeless” experience directly on the blockchain. This innovative solution will incorporate a Rust-based zero-knowledge virtual machine named ArchVM, and a decentralized verifier network to ensure transaction validity.

Uxuy clinches $7 million

Singaporean company Uxuy successfully raised $7 million in a pre-A funding round. The newly acquired funds will be utilized to enhance the platform for facilitating swift and affordable transactions of various assets such as Lightning Network taproots, Ordinals for Bitcoin RFC-20, and Runes.

As a crypto investor, I’d put it this way: I’ve been keeping a close eye on some significant investments in the blockchain space recently. Binance Labs, Bitcoin Magazine through UTXO Management, JDI Ventures, Bixin Ventures, SWC Global, and Matrix Partners have all made noteworthy contributions. These investors are pouring resources into various projects, which could potentially lead to groundbreaking advancements in the crypto world.

As a crypto investor, I’d describe Uxuy as follows: I find Uxuy to be an invaluable platform for me, offering a smooth trading experience that spans multiple blockchain networks. It’s been nurtured and supported by Binance Labs, ensuring its growth and stability.

Arcium nabs $5.5 million

In Bern, Switzerland, the confidential computing project Arcium successfully raised $5.5 million in financing.

Greenfield Capital took the lead in this funding round, with contributions also coming from Coinbase, Heartcore Capital, Longhash Ventures, L2 Iterative Ventures, and various angel investors.

As a researcher studying the advancements in secure data processing, I’m excited about Arcium’s innovative approach to constructing a parallelized confidential computing network. Instead of using traditional single-party environments, they are employing multiparty computation execution environments, or MXEs for short, to execute secure computations on encrypted data. This method allows for increased efficiency and privacy by distributing the workload across multiple parties while ensuring that sensitive information remains concealed throughout the process.

The funds will be utilized to broaden our development initiatives and facilitate the launch of the forthcoming private and public testing networks.

Gnosis partners with Zeal, invests $2 million

In the recent venture capital financing, digital wallet pioneer Zeal emerged victorious with a significant investment. This investment came as part of a strategic alliance with Gnosis, an Ethereum (ETH) sidechain, which contributed a $2 million stake to the collaboration.

As a crypto investor, I’m excited to announce that in addition to forming a strategic partnership, Gnosis will be investing $2 million into Zealwallet. This investment will boost Zeal’s total funding raise to an impressive $11 million, following their earlier seed round of $7 million. 🚀
— GnosisDAO (@GnosisDAO) May 9, 2024

With a $2 million investment from Gnosis, Zeal’s overall funding now reaches $11 million, following their successful $7 million seed round.

Zest Protocol locks in $3.5 million

In conclusion, during the past week, Bitcoin lending platform Zest successfully secured $3.5 million in funding. This financing will allow Bitcoin owners to earn returns through yield generation directly on the blockchain.

With Tim Draper, the wealthy investor, leading the way, the initial funding round attracted investments from Binance Labs, Flow Traders, Trust Machines, and other notable contributors.

Using the Nakamoto upgrade on Bitcoin’s layer-2 networks like Stacks, Zest Protocol introduces the interoperable token sBTC, which holds an equal value to Bitcoin, to deliver a genuine Bitcoin lending platform.

2024-05-18 17:22