Funding Weekly Report | 18 Public Funding Events, Canton Network Developers Complete $50 Million Financing, with Bank of New York Mellon and Nasdaq Participating

Highlights of this Issue

According to incomplete statistics from PANews, last week (12.1-12.7), there were 18 blockchain investment and financing events worldwide, with a total funding scale exceeding $344 million. The overview is as follows:

• DeFi announced 7 investment and financing events, including the decentralized exchange Ostium completing a $20 million Series A funding, led by Jump Trading;
• Web3+AI track announced 2 investment and financing events, including the decentralized AI network DeepNode raising a total of $5 million in two funding rounds;
• Infrastructure & Tools announced 3 investment and financing events, including the Ethereum network testing tool Antithesis completing a $105 million Series A funding, led by Jane Street;
• Centralized Finance announced 3 investment and financing events, including stablecoin application Fin raising $17 million, led by Pantera Capital;
• Other Web3 Applications announced 3 investment and financing events, including prediction market Opinion revealing a new round of financing worth tens of millions of dollars;
• Additionally, 2 listed companies completed financing for crypto treasury strategies: Lion Group signed a $10 million private placement agreement, allocating $8 million to purchase BTC

DeFi

Decentralized exchange Ostium completes $20 million Series A funding, led by Jump Trading

Founded by Harvard graduates, the decentralized exchange Ostium completed a $20 million Series A funding, with a post-investment valuation of about $250 million, led by General Catalyst and Jump Trading, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute, and GSR. Ostium has previously raised about $8 million in total. The platform focuses on perpetual contract trading of real-world assets such as commodities and stocks, aiming to provide transparent and efficient US market exposure for overseas investors outside the US. Co-founder and CEO stated that their goal is not to directly compete with native perpetual contract protocols like Hyperliquid but to challenge traditional online brokers like Robinhood and eToro. The team has 15 employees, and this round of funding will be used to expand the non-crypto user market. Its product logic targets the pain points faced by overseas investors accessing the US market through traditional brokers, such as system opacity and technological lag.

DeFi protocol Zoo Finance completes $8 million strategic round to unlock locked token liquidity

Zoo Finance, a DeFi protocol focused on unlocking locked token liquidity, announced the completion of an $8 million strategic round. Zoo Finance’s core product is the pioneering LVT (Liquidity Vault Token) & LNT (Liquidity Node Token) protocol, which splits locked tokens into VT (Vault Token) and YT (Yield Token), transforming locked ownership tokens into tradable digital assets. This innovation enables on-chain and off-chain trading for SAFT and node holders, creating new opportunities for future token yield trading.

The round was led by Bitrise Capital, with participation from Signum Capital, Certik Ventures, TOP, CGV Funds, and Cryptomeria. To date, Zoo Finance has raised a total of $10 million, with previous investors including CMS Holdings, Big Brain Holdings, DefinanceX, Pragma Ventures, HG Ventures, YBB Capital, 0xVentures, and Aquarius Financials.

On-chain yield protocol Axis raises $5 million, led by Galaxy Ventures

On-chain yield protocol Axis completed a $5 million private placement, led by Galaxy Ventures, with participation from OKX Ventures, FalconX, GSR, Maven 11, CMS Holdings, and Marc Zeller, founder of Aave Chan Initiative. The oversubscription was fourfold. The project aims to introduce market-neutral strategies on-chain, having deployed $100 million during its closed beta phase, with a strategy Sharpe ratio of 4.9.

Axis offers uncorrelated returns across different assets such as USD, Bitcoin, and gold through multi-asset yield centers. Its first USD-pegged asset, USDx, generates yield via an arbitrage engine, with plans to expand to Bitcoin and gold assets. The protocol will be deployed on a dedicated chain for stablecoins supported by Bitfinex, called Plasma, to reduce operational costs, and will integrate Chainlink reserve proofs and Veda custody infrastructure. The team plans to launch its first Origin Vault this year, aiming to raise up to $1 billion in deposits before the public token sale and full protocol launch in early 2026.

On-chain yield platform Altura raises $4 million

On-chain yield platform Altura completed a $4 million funding round, led by Ascension, with participation from European private equity firm Moonfare, InnoFinCon, and others. The platform aims to provide transparent, risk-controlled on-chain stable yields for ordinary users and institutions through professional quantitative strategies. Altura employs a single on-chain treasury structure, capturing market-neutral yields by arbitraging across exchanges, obtaining hedge position funding rates, and allocating interest-bearing assets, targeting an annualized return of 20%-30% in normal markets.

On-chain money market LayerBank raises $2.3 million Pre-Seed

LayerBank announced the completion of a $2.3 million Pre-Seed round, with investors including Torab Torabi (CEO of Move Industries), Coin Bureau Chinese, DVchain, Taiko, Rootstock, and multiple angel investors and ecosystem contributors. The new funds will be used to develop and launch its native token ULAB, designed as the foundation for long-term value capture and incentive models. LayerBank plans to hold its token generation event (TGE) on Movement Network. It is a universal liquidity and on-chain money market supporting over 150 markets across more than 17 chains, aiming to provide lending and yield strategies through a unified chain abstraction experience.

Haiku completes $1 million Pre-Seed funding, aims to simplify DeFi execution

Decentralized trading infrastructure project Haiku completed a $1 million Pre-Seed round led by Big Brain Holdings, with participation from Auros, Frostlight, Daedalus Syndicate, and Biconomy CEO Ahmed Al-Balaghi. Haiku proposes a “Declarative Trading” model, allowing users to define target states, with the system automatically executing complex strategies, supporting 20 chains and 45+ protocols, aiming to move DeFi from cumbersome operations to one-click execution.

RWA platform OpenEden completes strategic funding, with Ripple, FalconX participating

RWA (Real World Asset) tokenization platform OpenEden announced the completion of strategic funding, with investors including Ripple, Lightspeed Faction, Gate Ventures, and other well-known institutions. The funds will be used to expand its RWA tokenization service platform and scale its regulated yield-stablecoin USDO and tokenized US Treasury bond fund TBILL. Founder and CEO Jeremy Ng stated that this financing will help provide compliant products meeting traditional and DeFi standards. The RWA tokenization market is expected to double by 2025, with OpenEden’s TBILL fund becoming a preferred choice for institutional investors, with assets under management growing over tenfold in two years. The funds will also support US

AI

DeepNode, a decentralized AI network, raises $5 million in two funding rounds

DeepNode, a decentralized AI network, has raised a total of $5 million across two rounds: a seed round valued at $25 million with $2 million, followed by a strategic round valued at $75 million with $3 million. The seed round involved community participation and support from key network validators, including WildSageLabs from RoundTable21, Rizzo from DNA, and infrastructure partner Gateway.FM. The strategic round was led by a consortium of Web3 and AI infrastructure investors, including Blockchain Founders Fund, Side Door Ventures, TBV, IOBC Capital, Fomo Ventures, and Nestoris.

TrueNorth, a dedicated AI platform for finance, completes $3 million Pre-Seed, led by CyberFund

TrueNorth, an AI platform focused on finance, completed a $3 million Pre-Seed round led by CyberFund, with participation from Delphi Labs, SNZ, GSR, and Ocular. The funds will be used to develop the “Financial Intelligent Reasoning Layer,” an AI designed specifically for finance that avoids hallucinations when dealing with funds.

TrueNorth aims to build dedicated AI infrastructure for finance, addressing hallucination and latency issues faced by general models in financial decision-making. The platform already has over 40,000 users on its waitlist. It leverages structured manuals, real-time data fusion, and proprietary models trained on market logic to convert elite traders’ expertise into AI agents.