Morpho leads crypto VC week with $50m round; DuelNow, Daylight follow suit

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As a seasoned crypto investor with a knack for spotting promising opportunities, I can confidently say that this week’s fundraising rounds have been nothing short of exhilarating! Morpho’s $50 million strategic round, led by Ribbit Capital, has caught my attention due to its potential to revolutionize the decentralized lending sector. The involvement of heavyweights like a16z and Coinbase Ventures further solidifies my belief in their vision.

During the period from July 28 to August 3, a total of $107.6 million was invested into cryptocurrency startups, with Morpho’s $50 million strategic funding round serving as the largest contributor. Additionally, significant investments were made in DuelNow and Daylight.

As a seasoned investor who has closely followed the blockchain industry for years, I can confidently say that this latest round of funding for 19 blockchain startups is another testament to the immense potential and growing maturity of the sector. With my background in tech investment, I’ve seen numerous ups and downs, but the consistent flow of capital into promising blockchain projects is a clear sign that we are witnessing a significant turning point in the industry. The $107.6 million raised by these 19 companies underscores the increasing interest from investors and validates the hard work being done by innovative teams across the globe. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for this rapidly evolving landscape, and I’m excited to be a part of it as an investor.

In this round of fundraising, Morpho – a top-tier decentralized crypto lender – outshone other significant investments by successfully raising $50 million. This surpassed the investments made in DuelNow ($11 million) and Daylight ($9 million).

Below, we look at some of the notable crypto fundraising rounds that made the news.

Morpho, $50 million

In my analysis, I’ve discovered that Morpho was the leading fundraiser this past week, managing to secure an impressive $50 million during a strategic funding round. Notably, Ribbit Capital took the lead in this round, with key contributions also coming from a16z and Coinbase Ventures.

We’re thrilled to share the news: Morpho has received $50M in investment, with Ribbit Capital taking the lead! This funding, along with support from other strategic partners, will boost Morpho’s decentralization efforts and help it achieve its goal of transforming financial infrastructure into a public resource.

— Morpho Labs đŸĻ‹ (@MorphoLabs) August 1, 2024

Initially, the company specialized in enhancing performance for Aave (AAVE) and Compound (COMP). However, it has since transformed into Morpho Blue, a sophisticated lending system equipped with internal mechanisms to manage risks.

Speaking about the round’s outcome, CEO Paul Frambot highlighted that the fresh investment will primarily be utilized for enhancing Morpho’s decentralization and fostering its worldwide expansion.

DuelNow, $11 million

In this week’s venture capital events, the decentralized sports betting platform, DuelNow, emerged victorious, securing a new investment of $11 million.

The leadership role in this investment was taken by GEM Digital Limited, who provided a total of $10 million. Furthermore, well-known angel investors like Charlie Lee, the founder of Litecoin (LTC), and Billy Markus, one of Dogecoin‘s co-founders, added an extra $1 million to the investment as well.

DuelNow aims to revolutionize the world of sports betting by leveraging blockchain technology on the Arbitrum (ARB) network. This innovation is set to offer a transparent, decentralized platform where users can bet directly with each other, fostering trust and fairness in every transaction.

Daylight, $9 million

In another location, the company Daylight, which focuses on creating decentralized energy distribution networks using blockchain technology (known as DePIN), secured $9 million during their first round of funding, called Series A.

I’m thrilled to share that @a16zcrypto is spearheading a $9M Series A investment in @daylightenergy_! Daylight is developing a decentralized protocol aimed at funding and coordinating distributed energy resources. In the U.S., the energy sector is dominated by heavily regulated monopolies today, but…

— Guy Wuollet (@guywuolletjr) July 31, 2024

In this round, A16z Crypto took the lead, with Framework Ventures and other investors joining in. Daylight plans to speed up its work on reducing energy waste and improving distribution by linking diverse energy devices like solar panels and electric car chargers to a distributed network.

The objective is to offer energy solutions that work more effectively, possibly revolutionizing the energy industry using distributed technology as a key resource.

Hyperbolic Labs, $7 million

The AI-focused startup, Hyperbolic Labs Inc., successfully completed a $7 million investment round, with Polychain Capital and Lightspeed Faction taking the lead in financing.

We’re excited to share the news of a $7 million funding round that positions us as a frontrunner in the Open-Access AI Cloud! 🚀🌩ī¸â€” Hyperbolic (@hyperbolic_labs) July 30, 2024

The business intends to allocate the collected funds towards enhancing their global GPU resource-aggregating platform, aiming to offer cost-effective artificial intelligence processing capabilities.

The group driving this project aspires to make artificial intelligence (AI) technology more accessible, providing substantial price cuts on high-performance computing resources to both companies and research institutions in need.

Other noteworthy investments

  • Pichi Finance, a protocol focused on trustless points trading, raised $2.5 million in a seed round led by UOB Venture Management, Signum Capital, and Mantle Network. 
  • Raad Labs, a blockchain climate tech company, collected $2.25 million to enhance climate data measurement through a distributed sensor network.
  • Other companies in this category include those in pre-seed rounds and unknown rounds, which collectively raised $11.1 million.

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2024-08-03 20:38