Crypto Venture Capital Uptick: Top 10 Newly Funded Projects in July 2023

“This is an updated version as it came to our attention that an earlier featured project, Peko on the Linea blockchain, stopped operations right after they’ve raised funding, leaving their investors stranded. This project has since been replaced by Shardeum”

According to DeFi Llama, 51 cryptocurrency projects secured funding in July. The total capital raised increased month over month, with $454 million raised in July compared to $343.98 million in June, marking a 31.98% increase. This surge can be attributed to the new ruling on XRP, which has shed light on digital assets. The court ruled that Ripple's token is not a security per se. However, sales of XRP, such as those made to institutional investors directly solicited by Ripple, were part of investment contracts and thus classified as securities offerings. On the other hand, sales of XRP through anonymous listings on digital asset exchanges and distributions to employees and third parties for no consideration were not considered securities offerings.

Now, let's focus on the standout performers of July. Certain projects, particularly those focusing on interoperability or cross-chain solutions, attracted significant interest and capital. In contrast, orderbook platforms found it challenging to attract the same levels of capital as before.

Let's now introduce the top ten projects that successfully raised capital in July despite market turbulence. These projects demonstrate that innovation and determination can still triumph in the face of fluctuating market dynamics. Let's explore their stories and celebrate their achievements.

Supersight

The London-base­d Generative AI startup, Supe­rSight, is quickly gaining recognition in the crypto data industry. Their groundbre­aking Large Language Models (LLMs) spe­cifically cater to the nee­ds of crypto data analysis. With a mission to narrow the gap betwee­n the 420 million cryptocurrency users and the­ limited 30,000 users who can efficie­ntly extract insights programmatically, SuperSight offers e­asy access to information from various sources such as Discord, Tele­gram, Twitter, Mirror, Podcast Transcripts, and News. By harnessing artificial inte­lligence (AI), they e­nhance search expe­riences by personalizing the­m and delivering accurate and valuable­ insights.

SuperSight was founde­d by Sungjung Kim, Advait Jayant, and Mohammed Junaid. They all shared a common vision of making blockchain data e­asily accessible. The founde­rs possess diverse backgrounds in physics, compute­r science, machine le­arning, portfolio management, crypto trading, institutional sales, and founding D2C e­commerce businesse­s. SuperSight is currently deve­loping specialized LLMs tailored to cryptocurre­ncy analysis. These unique algorithms transform comple­x data into user-friendly insights. Through their intuitive­ platform, users can explore a wide­ range of queries without any coding knowle­dge necessary. This include­s identifying high-performing traders, asse­ssing token profit and loss dynamics, or examining rete­ntion metrics—allowing limitless possibilities aligne­d with the user's imagination.

SuperSight e­nvisions a future in which even individuals with limite­d technical expertise­ can access and understand the vast pool of information within the­ crypto world. This empowers them to make­ informed decisions and smarter inve­stments. With SuperSight, this vision become­s reality today. The rece­nt successful $1M pre-see­d funding round serves as evide­nce for the trust investors place­ in SuperSight's capabilities and long-term goals. The­se funds will boost the deve­lopment of SuperSight's vertical-spe­cific foundational models, thereby re­volutionizing data analytics in the crypto domain. Their unique approach aims to de­mocratize cryptodata analysis, making it accessible and compe­lling for all users, irrespective­ of their expertise­.

Magic Square

Discover community-vetted apps and games, rewards, giveaways, and more on Magic Square. It's a platform that serves the Web3 crypto ecosystem by providing engaging opportunities to earn while using. Project developers can list their projects on the Magic Store or upload an offer to the Magic Boost, free of charge. To begin, users should create a MagicID on magic.store and confirm their email and Discord information. This will grant them entry to the Magic Store and the various possibilities for utilization and accumulation.

The recent collaboration between Magic Square and Binance Labs marks a major milestone in solidifying Magic Square's dominant position in the Web3 realm. This partnership not only propels the growth of the Magic Square ecosystem, but also creates a pathway for wider acceptance of cryptocurrencies. Binance Labs' investment in Magic Square exemplifies their commitment to fostering innovation within the blockchain community, and their belief in the extraordinary possibilities that Magic Square possesses. With a reputation for identifying and funding exceptional Web 3.0 ventures and visionary entrepreneurs, Binance Labs greatly contributes to the widespread adoption of blockchain technology.

Cloudburst

Cloudburst Technologies is committed to combating digital currency and cryptocurrency fraud. Their repertoire includes real-time monitoring solutions and cyber threat intelligence tools that promptly track fraudulent activities within the cryptocurrency market. These tools not only identify the culprits behind these illicit actions but also execute this without relying on anonymous wallet addresses. Cloudburst's range of solutions caters to a diverse clientele comprising public sector organizations, players in the web3 ecosystem, and entities from traditional finance.

In July 2023, Cloudburst Technologies made an important announcement regarding the conclusion of their seed investment round worth $3 million. This investment was led by Strategic Cyber Ventures (SCV), noteworthy participation came from Coinbase Ventures and Bloccelerate as well. The infusion of funds will pave the way for expanding operations and widening Cloudburst's business span.

The aim of the company is to use this boost in momentum as an opportunity to improve the security and stability within the cryptocurrency market through establishing fresh cyber intelligence standards. Cloudburst Technologies is committed to combating digital currency fraud. By offering regulatory solutions such as their Cloudburst API, they assist clients in anticipating and defending against instances of market manipulation. These solutions are crafted to offer transparency into complex transactions, thereby empowering investors, exchanges, and regulatory bodies with valuable insights so that they can effectively understand, predict, and safeguard themselves against detrimental cases of market manipulation.

Shardeum

Shardeumis an EVM, smart contract platform which is designed to linearly scale by using dynamic state sharding. Although it can be categorized with other state sharding platforms like Harmony, Elrond and Near, it has some unique features that set it apart from the rest. While most platforms group transactions into blocks and apply consensus at the block level, Shardeum does consensus on each transaction separately. This allows a transaction that affects multiple shards to be processed simultaneously by these shards rather than consecutively as with block level consensus. This not only reduces the time to process the transaction even if it affects multiple shards, but also ensures atomic processing.

Shardeum has recently closed of a $5.4 million strategic raise with participation from Amber Group, Galxe, J17 Capital, JSquare, and TRGC, among others. Shardeum aims to leverage the additional funding to further support the growth of the ecosystem in the lead-up to the mainnet launch later this year.

Ion Protocol

Ion Protocol is a price-agnostic lending platform that leverages provable validator-backed data to mint $allETH—an ETH denominated stablecoin. In simpler terms, Ion Protocol allows users to deposit validator-backed assets, such as Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs), re-staking positions, and more, and in return, they can mint $allETH, an ETH-denominated stablecoin.

Unlike traditional lending platforms, Ion Protocol's loan positions are price-agnostic. The health of these positions is determined by provable validator balances and their historical beacon chain performance. This means that liquidations are triggered by changes in the consensus layer state, not by price oracles. This unique approach is enabled by a network of oracles running Ion Protocol's zkML framework, which allows trustless verification of consensus layer state and validator credit ratings.

Ion Protocol's core lending architecture allows users to deposit a variety of assets into the protocol's Collateralized Debt Position (CDP) vaults. These assets include LSTs, LST LP Positions, Re-staking Positions, Staked LST LP Positions, and LST Index Products. Once deposited, users can borrow allETH, Ion's native ETH-denominated stablecoin, to use in the broader DeFi ecosystem while still retaining their staking yield.

For users looking to deposit their re-staked collateral within Ion, the protocol automatically mints a liquid representation of their re-staking position that they can then use in the broader DeFi ecosystem. This service is open-source, fee-free, and open for any user or protocol to interact with, without needing to open an allETH position.

Ion Protocol recently announced a successful $2M pre-seed funding round. This funding round brought together an impressive assortment of value-aligned investors, including Portal Ventures and SevenX Ventures as co-leads, and other notable investors like BanklessVC, HASHCIB, Foresight Ventures, Smrti Labs, Maelstrom Fund, Breed VC, Everstake Pool, Punk Ventures DAO, Builder VC, and Picks and Shovels VC. The funds raised will be used to support the future of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus networks and build the financial rails required to trustlessly underwrite slashable security, the native commodity of PoS networks.

Ethena Labs

Ethena Labs is a DeFi startup that is building infrastructure to unlock the potential of staked Ethereum. The company's product suite includes USDe, a delta-neutral stablecoin with embedded yield, Internet Bonds, which are globally accessible floating and fixed rate USD-denominated bonds, and Repo Financing, which provides capital efficient and composable leverage.

Ethena's USDe is a stablecoin that solves the decentralized money trilemma. It is 100% collateralized with trustless crypto assets, is censorship-resistant with no collateral within the banking system, captures yield from stETH and basis arbitrage, and is scalable without requiring overcollateralization.

The creation mechanics of USDe involve users depositing either USD, Ethereum, or liquid staking tokens as collateral. Stability is ensured through a delta-neutral hedging process across centralized and decentralized exchanges. Collateral is distributed to secure on-chain custodial wallets, and a corresponding short position is taken for delta-neutral collateralization. USDe is the first decentralized, scalable, and stable asset with returns derived from the economic activity of Ethereum and futures markets.

Ethena's recent funding round was a success, with the company raising $6 million. The round was led by Pantera Capital and included participation from Lemniscap, CMS Holdings, DeFiance, D64, and others. The funds raised will be used to expand the team, develop the protocol, and build a community around the product. Ethena's vision is to create a more efficient and inclusive financial system by unlocking the potential of staked Ethereum.

Side Protocol

Side Protocol is a distributed mesh liquidity network system that leverages innovative inter-blockchain asset exchange application protocols. Unlike traditional liquidity hubs, Side Protocol decentralizes liquidity between various blockchain networks in a bridgeless manner while maintaining interconnectivity. The core of Side Protocol is SIDE, an EVM-compatible layer-1 infrastructure that serves as the system's liquidity engine. SIDE fosters interconnectivity and ensures sufficient liquidity between different blockchain networks. It is a developer-centric layer-1 blockchain built to empower innovation with result-driven incentives.

Side Protocol's vision is to establish the ultimate standards for inter-blockchain asset exchange, catering to the future of app-chains and serving as the flagship infrastructure and product for Cosmos, rollups, modular chains, general layer1s, and beyond. The aim is to unlock the full potential of decentralized finance.

A liquidity network represents a natural progression in inter-blockchain asset exchange. Side Protocol introduced the Mesh Liquidity Network. This network is built upon interconnecting liquidity hubs that seamlessly communicate with each other, eliminating the need for traditional bridges and intermediary tokens. The state of a liquidity pool transcends individual blockchains and exists across multiple blockchains, encompassing two or more liquidity hubs. This network utilizes a hub-and-mesh design, ensuring decentralized liquidity distribution and addressing liquidity fragmentation effectively.

Side Protocol has recently raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by 1kx and included participation from Spartan Group, The LAO, Zee Prime Capital, and several angel investors. The funds will be used to grow the cross-blockchain liquidity network and to expand operations and business reach. The company plans to use the funding to hire more engineers and to build out its product, which is currently in the early stages of development. The goal is to launch a testnet in the coming months and a mainnet by the end of the year.

Ola

Ola is a privacy-focused Web3 startup that is experimenting with a hybrid zero-knowledge rollup called "ZK-ZKVM". This technology aims to offer optional privacy in the crypto industry. The ultimate goal of Ola, as stated by its CEO Ocean Chen, is to make privacy a fundamental right in the digital age, especially for Web3 users. With Ola's full-featured ZK-ZKVM, developers can harness the potential of privacy-centric applications that prioritize user control and data protection.

Ola is being developed by the Sin7Y Applied R&D Team. The team is working on a ZK-ZKVM platform for Ethereum that offers programmable privacy, robust architecture, flexible data sharing, data ownership, high programmability, high performance, better language scalability, and developer-friendly tools. Ola-VM is a full-featured ZK-friendly ZKVM, and Ola-lang is a developer-friendly general-purpose smart contract language. The project is still in development, and implementation details related to privacy will be released in the upcoming third whitepaper upon releasing the test net.

Recently, Ola raised $3 million in seed funding. The funding round was co-led by Web3.com Ventures and Foresight Ventures, with additional participation from Token Metrics Ventures, LD Capital, Catcher VC, and others. The funds raised will be used to further develop Ola's privacy-focused technology and expand its operations. Ola is currently not available to the public. It intends to launch a beta testnet in the third quarter and release a public testnet by the end of 2023.

Wynd Network

Grass, developed by Wynd Network, is a browser extension that empowers users to monetize their internet connection. It achieves this by enabling users to sell their unused network resources, or their unique "view of the internet". In the digital world, data is king. Companies are willing to pay for a diverse range of perspectives to gather comprehensive data. This is where Grass comes in. By acting as a residential IP proxy, users can share their unique internet perspective, allowing companies to scrape the web for public data they need.

Currently, the market for residential IP proxies is dominated by centralized service providers. These providers often exploit users by selling their unused bandwidth without fair compensation. Grass aims to disrupt this industry by introducing a decentralized residential proxy market that rewards its users fairly. Grass operates as a web extension that users can download and forget about. It works in the background, facilitating the acquisition of public web data in exchange for payment in the protocol's native token. This token not only provides monetary compensation but also gives users a stake in the network and a say in its direction.

Grass has recently announced a successful $1M pre-seed funding round. The round was led by NoLimitHodl and saw participation from other investors including Kyle Samani, BigBrainVC, EclipseFND, SatoriFinance, and others. The funds raised will be used to further develop the platform and expand its reach.

Web3Go

Web3Go is a Data Intelligence Network that emerged from the BinanceLabs MVB V Incubation Program. It offers a suite of AI-native digital asset tools and real-time data infrastructure. The company is revolutionizing the AI and data sectors with its cutting-edge solutions, creating AI-native digital assets and redefining production relations with blockchain technology.

Web3Go has recentlyraised $4 million in seed round funding. The investment round saw participation from Binance Labs, Hashkey Capital, NGC, Shima Capital, IVC, LIF, Big Brain Holdings, and Archerman Capital. The funding was facilitated through Web3Go’s participation in Binance Labs MVB 5 Accelerator Program.

The funds raised will be used to accelerate the development of Web3Go's groundbreaking project, Web3Go DIN. This project aims to redefine the blockchain ecosystem. With the financial backing and collaborative efforts of their partners, Web3Go is confident that they can make significant strides towards their goal of revolutionizing the blockchain sector.

July Crypto Venture Capital

In July 2023, approximately 51 cryptocurrency projects received funding, a figure that surpasses the previous month's count. The total capital raised also saw an increase, with $454 million collected in July, a 31.98% rise from the $343.98 million gathered in June. The steady flow of funded projects indicates that investor interest in the crypto sector remains robust. If these projects are securing more funds, it could signal a growing confidence among investors in the sector's profitability and future potential.

What can we expect in the coming month? We anticipate these trends to persist, but economic changes could induce some shifts. Global political issues and new crypto regulations could inject uncertainty into the market, potentially impacting the volume of investment and the number of deals made. Furthermore, broader economic conditions, including inflation rates, interest rates, and the performance of traditional financial markets, will also sway investor sentiment and activity among crypto venture capital firms.

Nonetheless, there's still a substantial buzz around blockchain and DeFi, and an increasing number of industries are embracing digital assets. This should keep investors engaged. Therefore, despite potential short-term volatility, the long-term prospects for cryptocurrency investments remain optimistic.