This Week in Crypto Venture Capital: Celestia Foundation Raises $100M, Infinex Secures $65.29M From NFT Sale

In this week's venture capital update, more than $253 million flowed into the crypto startup world, although the bulk of that funding went to the blockchain network Celestia Foundation.

Crypto.news scanned social media and recent data from Crypto Fundraising to compile a list of 13 companies that raised capital between Sept. 22 and Sept. 28. Here they are:

Celestia Foundation, $100 million

The Liechtenstein-based non-profit organization, known for building Celestia (TIA), raised $100 million from major crypto-focused venture capital firms, led by Bain Capital Crypto.

Infinex, $65.29 million

Infinex, a decentralized exchange, secured $65.29 million via a non-fungible token, or NFT, sale. Framework Ventures, Solana Ventures, Wintermute, Eden Block, Moonrock Capital and Bankless VC each participated in the effort.

Pencils Protocol, $30 million

Pencils Protocol, an auction platform and yield aggregator on Scroll, raised an additional $30 million. DePIN X, Taisu Ventures, Black GM Capital and Bing Ventures are among its strategic investors.

Initia, $14 million

Initia clinched $14 million in a Series A round. Tomasz Tunguz and Spencer Farrar from Theory VC led the effort, with participation from Delphi Ventures and Hack VC.

Mawari Network, $10.8 million

Mawari Network raised $10.8 million in strategic funding to pioneer the future of spatial computing.

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Mind Network, $10 million

Mind Network raised $10 million in a pre-A funding round. Animoca Brands, Arkstream Capital, Cogitent VC, MH Ventures, Moonhill Capital, SwissBorg, IBC Group and Master VC were among its investors.

Darkbright, $6 million

Bitkraft Ventures led an oversubscribed $6 million seed round for Darkbright, the web3 studio behind the Smolbound role-playing game.

Announcing our oversubscribed $6M Seed round led by @BITKRAFTVC and other leading gaming and web3 investors.

Smolbound is a refreshing take on the life sim RPG genre, and the first title by @darkbrightgames to build the future of midcore gaming.

Daylight, $6 million

Union Square Ventures and 1kx Network co-led a $6-million seed funding round in crypto platform Daylight, which is known for its transaction recommendation API.

Gunzilla Games, $6 million

Delphi Ventures made its largest gaming investment to date in Gunzilla Games, whose GUNZ blockchain is a key component of the studio's upcoming Web3 game, “Off The Grid.”

We are proud to have more remarkable supporters of our vision as @Delphi_Ventures has become the largest validator of our blockchain network, @GUNbyGUNZ.

We look forward to having Delphi as a partner as we grow the GUNZ ecosystem.

Read more: https://t.co/dL0JpqtS4e pic.twitter.com/0FG4QQrdvL

AminoChain, $5 million

Relatively quiet for the past two years, AminoChain—a decentralized biobank and Layer 2 network—finally announced a new funding round on Friday, revealing that a16z crypto led a $5 million seed funding round.

After 2 years of building in silence we’re so excited to finally share what we’ve been working on at AminoChain and announce our $5M seed round led by @a16zcrypto !

Funding rounds < $5 million

For last week’s column, click here.