Techemy Advisory Capital Chronicles: March 2019
Welcome to Techemy Advisory Capital Chronicles where we cover capital raises, mergers and acquisitions (M&As), ICOs, IEOs and STOs that occurred in the blockchain space over the past month.
In March, approximately twenty-nine companies raised capital amounting to around $100M. Even though there were more companies that announced successful raises compared to February, in February, seventeen companies raised in excess of $200M. Many of the companies in this report did not disclose their raise amounts. For example Securities Times, a Chinese financial news publication reported that Canaan Creative has raised “several hundred million U.S. dollars,” in the reported round. This alone would mean that there was a significantly larger amount of money raised in March.
Eight deals were for cryptocurrency investing/trading platforms, three deals for Blockchain platforms, two for financial and payment platforms with others for various other applications.
Approximately six companies raised money via token sale events in March amounting to over $125M. Initial Exchange Offerings (IEO) have picked up with Binance, Huobi and ZBG Launchpad conducting one each in March, with more exchanges joining the foray in the following months. Kakao Corp raised $90M in a private coin sale for its blockchain platform ‘Klatyn’.
Eleven companies were acquired in March, three more than February. Once again big names were involved in these acquisitions, with Circle closing the acquisition of SeedInvest, Republic acquiring RenGen Labs, Robinhood acquiring MarketSnacks, Medici Ventures acquiring a stake of Bankorus and TRON acquiring CoinPlay. Of the eleven acquisitions, seven involved cryptocurrency and securities exchanges.
As mentioned in the video above, exchanges are a hot investment item at the moment, which is why we are pleased to represent Archax, a new, institutional-grade exchange for trading asset-backed tokens (digital securities, security tokens, etc.) based in London.
Thanks for reading, we hope that you’ll find Capital Chronicles valuable. If we have missed a deal that you know of, let us know. You can access more data and insights from Brave New Coin. Feel free to share or signup to our newsletter for more insights. Remember to check back next month for the latest of Capital Chronicles.
Nawaz Ahmed | Techemy Advisory
Equity Capital Raising
01/03/2019 | VALR | $1,500,000
South African crypto trading platform VALR raised $1.5M in seed funding led by Bittrex.
04/03/2019 | Tagomi | $12,000,000
Tagomi, a New York-based cryptocurrency brokerage and trading platform, has raised $12M in their latest funding round led by Yale-Backed Paradigm Fund, with participation from Pantera Capital, Founders Fund and other prominent clients.
05/03/2019| Vimba | $500,000
Vimba, a New Zealand company which allows users to dollar-cost average purchase crypto has raised $500K from NEM Ventures in a deal led by Techemy.
06/03/2019 | ABE Global | $3,000,000
ABE Global, a new hybrid securities exchange has raised $3M in funding from strategic investors including Distributed Global, Galaxy Digital and Gumi Ventures.
06/03/2019 | Gilded | Undisclosed
The Request Foundation, a not-for-profit developing an open network for transaction requests, announced that it has signed an investment agreement with Gilded, a startup developing software that simplifies the accounting process for businesses that use cryptocurrency.
06/03/2019 | StrongBlock | $4,000,000
StrongBlock closes a $4M seed round from Pangea Blockchain Fund and Magnetic Capital to launch Enterprise Blockchain Technology.
07/03/2019 | Ligero | $1,150,000
ConsenSys Ventures announced that it invested $1.15 million investment in zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) cryptography startup Ligero.
07/03/2019 | PDAX | Undisclosed
ConsenSys Ventures announced that it invested an undisclosed sum in Philippines-based cryptocurrency exchange PDAX.
07/03/2019 | LedgerPrime | $12,000,000
LedgerPrime, a digital asset investment firm, has closed on $12M of institutional capital and secured commitments for another $8M. The proprietary trading firm, which began trading in the spot and derivatives markets for cryptocurrency, is owned by Ledger Holdings Inc., which is also the parent company of crypto futures platform LedgerX.
08/03/2019 | BABB | $1,000,000
Blockchain banking startup BABB (Bank Account Based Blockchain) and investment firm Custos Group have signed a collaborative partnership deal. Custos has also committed to investing a $1M capital injection into BABB with the aim of accelerating short-term growth and traction.
11/03/2019 | Amun | $4,000,000
Amun AG, a startup focused on crypto investments, has raised $4M to develop secure and easy channels of crypto asset trading and management for crypto investors. Contributors included Greg Kidd, co-founder of Hard Yaka, Adam Draper, founder of Boost VC, and Graham Tuckwell, founder of ETFS Capital.
12/03/2019 | Canaan Creative | Undisclosed
Canaan Creative, one of the biggest cryptocurrency mining equipment manufacturers in China, has closed a new undisclosed funding round. Securities Times, a Chinese financial news publication, reported that the company has raised “several hundred million U.S. dollars,” valuing the firm at over $1B.
12/03/2019 | Coinflex | Undisclosed
Physically delivered crypto futures exchange Coinflex has attracted two more high-profile crypto investors, Digital Currency Group and Polychain Capital, who have joined Coinflex’s investor consortium, which includes major market making and venture capital names such as Dragonfly Capital Partners, Trading Technologies and Roger Ver.
12/03/2019 | Finturi | $2,200,000
Finturi, a startup which enables businesses to secure loans against invoices via blockchain tech has raised $2.2M (2M Euros) in an angel round led by NetSam Participaties BV.
12/03/2019 | Electron | Undisclosed
Electron, an energy technology company that leverages blockchain has raised investment from Kaluza, an OVO company.
13/03/2019 | GECKO Governance | Undisclosed
COSIMO Ventures, announced an undisclosed investment through its evergreen, tokenised VC fund, COSIMO X, in GECKO Governance, a blockchain-based financial software solution that allows fund managers to meet regulatory and compliance requirements.
13/03/2019 | Lingar | Undisclosed
COSIMO Ventures, announced an undisclosed investment in Lingar, an augmented reality mobile application and SaaS platform for museums, cultural institutions, tours, and special venues.
13/03/2019 | Oneiro | $1,500,000
COSIMO Ventures will provide $1.5M to Oneiro, the developer of ndau, the world’s first “buoyant” digital currency, designed with smart monetary policies that mitigate volatility plus an underlying endowment of assets which together create a digital asset optimised for the long-term store of value. This investment follows COSIMO Ventures’ $3M investment in Oneiro in February 2018.
14/03/2019 | EDJX | $2,000,000
EDJX, a company building the world’s largest edge computing platform using blockchain-based management of serverless and container-based applications. has announced $2M in funding from strategic investors. The funding round included 6Fusion USA, Inc., and 4 unnamed private investors.
14/03/2019 | Tendermint | $9,000,000
Tendermint Inc, the developers of the Cosmos Network, have secured $9M in a Series A financing round led by Paradigm, along with participation from Bain Capital, 1confirmation, and other notable investors.
17/03/2019 | Donut | $1,800,000
Cryptocurrency investment app provider Donut has raised $1.8M in a seed funding round. The round was led by early-stage venture capital firm Redalpine. Other investors included technology venture funds EarlyBlock and Entrepreneur First, AngelList’s Philipp Moehring and Andy Chung, N26 bank board member Marcus Mosen, and others.
18/03/2019 | CoinNess | Undisclosed
CoinNess, an Asian blockchain information platform, closed its Series A funding round calculated in millions of dollars. The round was led by ShunWei Capital, QF Capital, and FreesFund.
19/03/2019 | Bison Trails | $5,250,000
Bison Trails, a blockchain staking startup, has raised $5.25M in a seed round. The round was led by Accomplice and Initialised Capital, with Notation Capital, Homebrew, Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital, Distributed Global and Charge Ventures and other angel investors also taking part.
20/03/2019 | CoinDCX | Undisclosed
CoinDCX, an Indian exchange, has raised a seed round of financing led by Bain Capital Ventures. Notable angels, including Sanjay Mehta and Utsav Somani participated.
20/03/2019 | CoinUS | Undisclosed
CoinUs, a Korean decentralised cryptocurrency wallet app that is building a decentralised app platform with its CoinVerse ecosystem, announced a strategic investment by DigiFinex, a global cryptocurrency exchange based in Singapore.
20/03/2019 | Ikigai Asset Management | Undisclosed
Morgan Creek Digital has invested an undisclosed amount in Ikigai Asset Management, a cryptocurrency and digital asset management firm that claims to be focused on generating superior risk-adjusted returns for its clients through venture-stage pre-ICO investments.
26/03/2019 | Blockchain Insurance Industry Initiative | $16,000,000
The Blockchain Insurance Industry Initiative (B3i) has raised around $16M in its latest funding round, according to corporate registry filings in Switzerland.
27/03/2019 | Cosmian | $1,570,000
Paris-based Cosmian has built a deep tech cryptography and blockchain platform to power a secure data economy. The startup has just finalised a seed round of $1.57M (€1.4M) led by Elaia, with participation from Acequia Capital, Financière de Blacailloux (Fiblac), and business angels.
27/03/2019 | Festy | Undisclosed
Ireland-based blockchain ticketing startup Festy has received an undisclosed investment from South Korean chat giant Kakao to develop a blockchain-based payment system.
Token Offerings
Over $125M was raised in various token offerings in March 2019.
11/03/2019 | Kakao Corp | $90,000,000
Kakao Corp. has raised $90M for ‘Klaytn’, its blockchain platform. Bloomberg reported that the money was acquired through a private coin offering and that another fundraising round seeking a similar sum began on March 12th. Translink Capital, Crescendo Equity Partners, and IDG Capital were among the firms that contributed to the initial round.
19/03/2019 | Celer Network | $4,000,000
Celer Network’s token sale sold out of 597M CELR tokens in a mere 17 minutes and 35 seconds on the Binance Launchpad. As a result, Celer Network raised about $4M in the IEO.
21/03/2019 | Numerai | $11,000,000
American prediction market startup and hedge fund Numerai has raised $11M in an ICO to launch its project Erasure. The ICO round was reportedly led by VC and private equity firm Placeholder, and crypto investment fund Paradigm.
22/03/2019 | The Ocean Protocol | $1,800,000
The Ocean Protocol raised just over $1.8M from 350+ contributors on the Coinlist and Fractal launchpad platforms. $1.55M was raised via Coinlist, $117k via Fractal, and an additional $150k was raised privately.
25/03/2019 | Kamari | $4,000,000
$4M worth KAM tokens sold out in 2 minutes 10 seconds on the ZBG Launchpad IEO.
26/03/2019 | TOP Network | $15,000,000
The IEO platform of Huobi Global — Huobi Prime, has completed the first selective token sale event. The event managed to sell a grand total of 1,5B TOP tokens for a total of $15M.
Mergers & Acquisitions
11 acquisitions of blockchain/cryptocurrency related companies were made in March 2019.
04/03/2018 | SeedInvest | Undisclosed
Circle closes the acquisition of SeedInvest which was announced in October 2018.
11/03/2018 | Bankorus | Undisclosed
A purchase which has been rumoured for a while has finally been disclosed. Medici Ventures has acquired a 5.1% stake in Bankorus, a blockchain banking platform focused on custody, lending, and exchange of assets on the blockchain.
18/03/2018 | Smartlands | Undisclosed
Smartlands, a Stellar-based platform for security token issuance, has acquired a major stake in Shojin Financial Services Limited (SFS). SFS is a London-based company that in 2017 received an investment license from the British Financial Conduct Authority allowing SFS to raise capital globally via crowdfunding.
24/03/2018 | RenGen Labs | Undisclosed
Republic, a Reg CF securities issuance platform, has acquired RenGen Labs a private equity platform that has operated in the initial coin offering/security token offering sector.
25/03/2018 | Firmo | Undisclosed
Global multi-asset investment platform eToro has announced that it has acquired Firmo, for an undisclosed amount. Firmo enables smart contracts for derivatives to be securely enabled on any major blockchain.
25/03/2018 | MarketSnacks | Undisclosed
MarketSnacks, a top-rated daily financial news podcast and newsletter, has been acquired by Robinhood, who have relaunched it as Robinhood Snacks.
26/03/2018 | NUI Social | Undisclosed
Appliqate, a Wyoming Corporation, has acquired a minority stake in Utah-based NUI Social. Appliqate also acquired ownership of its digital wallet assets and intellectual property.
26/03/2018 | Dynamo Development | Undisclosed
seriesOne a firm which enables digital securities offerings has acquired Dynamo Development to expand and strengthen its in-house technology development capabilities and accelerate the delivery of solutions for issuers to expand and strengthen its in-house technology development capabilities and accelerate the delivery of solutions for issuers.
26/03/2019 | Taotao | $19,000,000
Taotao, a cryptocurrency exchange, formerly known as BitARG is now a 40% subsidiary of Japan Yahoo in a $19M deal.
27/03/2019 | ByteSize Capital | Undisclosed
Digital asset management firm Arrington XRP Capital has acquired cryptocurrency-focused private fund and research house ByteSize Capital.
28/03/2019 | CoinPlay | Undisclosed
TRON has acquired the very first global blockchain app store: CoinPlay.
Disclaimer: Capital Chronicles is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide commercial, financial or legal advice. Nothing in this post constitutes an offer of securities or regulated financial products or financial services to any person.
