Techemy Advisory Capital Chronicles: October 2019
Welcome to Techemy Advisory Capital Chronicles where we analyse and list capital raises, mergers and acquisitions (M&As), ICOs, IEOs and STOs that occurred in the blockchain space over the past month.
According to our research, we have identified thirty-seven companies that raised traditional equity investment in September 2019, and twenty-two of them disclosed financial details of their raises. These twenty-two companies raised over $181M, with the largest raise ($50M) being conducted by Layer1. October saw three fewer companies than August (39) raise capital and as a result, fewer companies in October disclosed financial details of their deals, but still raised more capital than September.
As seen in Fig 1 above, Ripples Xpring made four investments in October, Pantera Capital made three investments, and Coinbase, Consensys Labs, Hashed, Polychain Capital and Winklevoss Capital made two investments each. Other crypto/blockchain investors that made at least one investment include gumi Cryptos, Fenbushi Capital, Galaxy Digital, Digital Currency Group and Medici Ventures.
There was not as much traditional VC and corporate participation in October. A few participants include 500 Startups, Sequoia Capital Indias Surge Accelerator, real estate firm Bauwens, and Kiatnakin Phatra Financial Group, one of the largest banks in Thailand. Well known individuals that made investments in October include Peter Thiel, Balaji Srinivasan, Naval Ravikant and Jack Dorsey.
Layer1 raised $50M, the largest equity capital raise of October. Layer1 is a startup that wants to make Texas the global hub for bitcoin mining. Its investment round raised money from Peter Theil, Shasta Ventures and other cryptocurrency investors. The amount was raised at a valuation of $200M. Of the twenty-two companies that disclosed financial details, four raised over $10M and between them, they raised $108.1M. There were six companies that conducted seed rounds of which the average raised was $2.9M. There were three companies that conducted Series A rounds, one of which was Layer1. The average raise for the other two was $8.25M. Ten of the twenty-two companies are from the US, while the remainder are from eight other countries, two each from Canada, India, Switzerland and the UK.
We recorded five token sales in October. The largest was conducted by the Nervos Network on the Coinlist platform raising $72M, with participants that include China Merchants Bank International (CMBI), Polychain Capital, Blockchain Capital, Hashkey Capital, MultiCoin Capital, and Distributed Global. Of the remaining four, two were IEOs and two were private token sales. The two IEOs were held on Binance and Liquid, of which the IEO held on Liquid did not disclose financial details. In total, these token sales and IEOs raised $17.5M.
The graph above displays the distribution of the disclosed capital raised in equity and token sales over various industries. Companies in the Blockchain segment raised just under $115M as seen in Fig 2. 65% of the amount raised was from token sales of which Nervos Network contributed most to. The Other category raised just over $85.2M and consisted of seven companies in seven different sectors including Art, Communications, Mining and Music.
We did not record any STOs in October, and there were not a lot of announcements either. Tokeny and Black Manta Capital announced that they will be launching a multi-STO platform. We recorded four acquisitions in October all of which had undisclosed financial details. ConsenSys acquired Infura, an Ethereum developer tools company, and Bitcoin.com acquired O3 Labs, a bitcoin dev startup. Three of the acquirees were in the Blockchain sector, while one was in the Trading & Investments sector. We also recorded two new funds announced in October. Institutional investor deposited over $5M in bitcoin for the DBL Digital Series Fund, a bitcoin investment product. Morgan Creek Digital raised the first $61M of its $250M targetted second venture capital fund. Institutional investors include Fairfax County’s Virginia’s Police Officer’s Retirement System and Employees’ Retirement System who are investing a combined $50M, and Wakemed Health and Hospitals, an insurance company and a university endowment making up the remainder.
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
Over $181M was raised in traditional equity offerings in October 2019.
01/10/2019 | BurstIQ | $5,500,000 | Healthcare | USA
BurstIQ, a provider of secure blockchain solutions for healthcare companies, has raised $5.5M in strategic investment led by Elsewhere Partners.
01/10/2019 | InstaDApp | $2,400,000 | Financial Service | India
InstaDApp, a startup building a DeFi portal that aggregates the major protocols using a smart wallet layer and bridge contracts, has raised a $2.4M seed round. Participants in the round include Pantera Capital, Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, Coinbase Ventures, IDEO Colab, Robot Ventures (Robert Leshner of Compound Finance), Loi Luu (Kyber Network), and others.
01/10/2019 | SKALE | $17,100,000 | Blockchain | USA
SKALE Network, a etheruem scaling network supported by the Node Foundation and SKALE Labs, has raised $17.1M in an investment round including Arrington XRP Capital, Blockchange, ConsenSys Labs, SKALE Labs, Hashed, HashKey, Multicoin Capital, Recruit Holdings, and Winklevoss Capital.
02/10/2019|Vega Protocol|$5,000,000|Trading & Investment|Gibraltar
Vega, a protocol for creating and trading derivatives on a fully decentralised network, has raised $5M in a seed round from strategic investors led by Pantera Capital. Other participants include Ripples Xpring, Hashed, NGC Ventures, gumi Cryptos Capital, Rockaway Blockchain, KR1, Eden Block, Focus Labs, Greenfield One, Monday Capital, RSK Ecosystem Fund and private investors.
03/10/2019 | Oneiro | $5,000,000 | Blockchain | USA
Oneiro, a provider of blockchain solutions, has secured an investment of $5M from COSIMO Ventures. This is the second investment in Oneiro by COSIMO, following a seed round of $3M in February 2018.
04/10/2019 | Verisart | $2,500,000 | Art | USA
Verisart, a startup that uses the blockchain to verify art and provide certification has raised a $2.5M seed round led by Galaxy Digital EOS VC Fund. Additional investments have also come from existing backers Sinai Ventures and Rhodium.
05/10/2019 | iSTOX | Undisclosed | Trading & Investment | Singapore
iSTOX, an exchange for digital securities, has raised an undisclosed Series A round. The investment was provided by Kiatnakin Phatra Financial Group, one of the largest banks in Thailand.
08/10/2019 | ACINQ | $8,000,000 | Blockchain | France
ACINQ, a Bitcoin development company, has received $8M in funding to improve the Lightning Network. The investment round was led by Idinvest Partners, with participation from Serena and Bpifrance.
08/10/2019 | Suterusu | Undisclosed | Cryptocurrency
Suterusu, a firm building an anonymous cryptocurrency, has received investment from RockX and GBIC.
09/10/2019|Fundament|Undisclosed| Trading & Investment | Germany
Fundament, a blockchain firm that issues security tokens, has received a strategic investment from Bauwens, the German real estate firm. Bauwens has acquired a 15% stake of Fundament.
09/10/2019 | Juno | $3,000,000 | Financial Services | India
Juno, a neo bank built on a blockchain, has raised $3M in a seed round led by Polychain Capital and Sequoia Capital India’s accelerator programme Surge. Other participants include Dragonfly Capital, Consensys Labs, Astarc Ventures and Singapore Angel Network.
09/10/2019 | Spherity | Undisclosed | Identity | Germany
Spherity, a startup building a decentralised identity solution for IoT applications, has received investment from HTGF.
10/10/2019|Crowd for Angels|Undisclosed| Trading & Investment | UK
Populous World, building an invoice discounting platform using blockchain, has invested in Crowd for Angels to issue digitised bonds.
10/10/2019 | New Vector | $8,500,000 | Communication | UK
New Vector, a start-up that created the open-source Matrix protocol and is now focused on delivering more open and secure communications, has raised $8.5M in a Series A round. Participants in the round include Ntion, First Minute, and Dawn.
11/10/2019 | Block Matrix | $2,000,000 | Cryptocurrency | UK
Block Matrix, creators of Bottle Pay an app which allows users to send Bitcoin through their social media accounts, has raised $2M (£1.64M) from private UK Investors.
11/10/2019 | BRD | $750,000 | Cryptocurrency | Switzerland
BRD, the cryptocurrency wallet provider had received a $750K investment from Ripples Xpring to boost adoption of XRP.
11/10/2019 | ICONLOOP | $8,000,000 | Blockchain | Korea
ICONLOOP, the tech lead for the ICON project, has raised an $8M Series A round.
14/10/2019 | Bitso | Undisclosed | Trading & Investment | Mexico
Bitso, a cryptocurrency exchange for the LATAM market, has raised an undisclosed amount in an investment round led by Ripple, with participation from Coinbase and Jump Capital, as well as existing investors Digital Currency Group and Pantera Capital.
14/10/2019 |TaurusEX|Undisclosed| Trading & Investment | Singapore
Usechain Asia Foundation has funded TaurusEX (jinniu.pro). As a finance-based crypto exchange, TaurusEX will compete against other similar crypto derivatives exchanges by offering creative derivatives products.
15/10/2019 | Beatdapp Software | $2,400,000 | Music | Canada
Beatdapp Software, a company validating digital content streams using blockchain technology, has raised $2.4M (CAD$3.2M). The round was led by Panache Ventures, there was also participation from Maple VC, 500 Startups, and Hike Ventures.
15/10/2019 | Layer1 | $50,000,000 | Mining | USA
Layer1, a startup that wants to make Texas the global hub for bitcoin mining, has raised $50M from Peter Theil, Shasta Ventures and other cryptocurrency investors. The amount was raised at a valuation of $200M.
16/10/2019 | Tovo Labs | Undisclosed | Cryptocurrency | Sweden
Ripples Xpring has invested in Tovo Labs to build firmware for hardware wallets.
17/10/2019 | Bvnex | Undisclosed | Trading & Investment | Vietnam
Collinstar recently completed a strategic investment in Vietnam’s fiat-to-crypto exchange Bvnex.
17/10/2019 | Verady | Undisclosed | Financial Services | USA
Verady, the maker of Ledgible, the cryptocurrency accounting and audit platform, announced it has closed an investment round led by TTV Capital, with participation from strategic partner Fenbushi Capital as well as Pamela Joseph, one of the most influential women in payments.
18/10/2019 | PandaBTM | Undisclosed | Financial Services | Venezuela
PandaBTM, a startup providing mobile crypto ATM service, has received an undisclosed seed investment.
21/10/2019 | Biscuitlabs | Undisclosed | Gaming | Korea
Biscuitlabs, a blockchain game development studio has received a strategic investment from Tron, via the Tron Arcade Fund.
22/10/2019 | CoinRoutes | $3,000,000 | Trading & Investment | USA
CoinRoutes, developers of an algorithmic crypto trading software, has received $3M in investment from Bitcoin Suisse.
22/10/2019 | Enjin | Undisclosed | Gaming | Singapore
Enjin, a blockchain development company, has received investment from Blockchain Ventures. Blockchain Ventures is the first equity investor in Enjin.
22/10/2019 | Peernova | $31,000,000 | Enterprise Solutions | USA
PeerNova, an enterprise software company building a blockchain-based product in the financial industry, announced that it has raised $31M in growth funding led by an existing investor, Mosaik Partners. Medici Ventures and Intuitive Venture Partners also joined this round.
24/10/2019 | SIBEX | $1,790,000 | Blockchain | Switzerland
SIBEX, developers of a P2P protocol creating new arbitrage opportunities for institutional traders have raised $1.79M (CHF 1.78M) in its seed funding round. Investors include Fenbushi Capital; SIX, the Swiss financial infrastructure provider; and specialist blockchain investment Accomplice VC, among others.
25/10/2019 | Huobi Japan | $4,590,000 | Trading & Investment | Japan
Huobi Japan, has received just under $4.59M (¥500M) from Financial Products Group, who purchased shares from the Japanese subsidiary of Singapore-incorporated Huobi Asset Investments .
28/10/2019 | Zamna | $5,000,000 | Travel | USA
Zamna, a startup building a passenger identity and security system on the blockchain, has raised $5M in a round led by LocalGlobe and Oxford Capital, with participation from Seedcamp, the London Co-Investment Fund, Telefónica and airline group IAG.
29/10/2019 | ZenSports | $675,000 | Gambling | USA
ZenSports, a mobile peer-to-peer sports betting marketplace has closed $675K in additional seed funding. The new funding was led by Jor Law, Co-Founder of VerifyInvestor.com, which was acquired by tZERO in 2018. The round was syndicated across several notable angel investors, including Jason Calacanis’ LAUNCH accelerator, and was part of a broader, rolling close of a $1M+ round that began in February 2019. Additional investors in the round include Baldini’s Sports Book & Casino and Movoto Co-Founder, Henry Shao.
30/10/2019 | Coinlist | $10,000,000 | Trading & Investment | USA
Coinlist, has recently raised $10M in a new round of venture funding. Participants include Polychain Capital, Jack Dorsey, Collaborative Fund, and existing investors.
31/10/2019 | Amberdata | Undisclosed | Data | USA
Amberdata, a blockchain and crypto-asset data company, has raised funding from several venture capital firms, including Fenbushi Capital, DF Capital, Rising Tide Fund, and HWVP. The new investment is to fuel growth and bring industry insight and experience.
31/10/2019 | TODAQ | $5,000,000 | Financial Services | Canada
TODAQ, a sovereignty tech company based out of Toronto and Seoul, has raised $5M from strategic partners in an investment round led by Hyundai BS&C, GEMS Education, and ThreeD Capital who are all working closely with TODAQ to evolve the product offering for diverse enterprise applications. Several other investors and investment groups joined the round.
31/10/2019 | Vault12 | Undisclosed | Cryptocurrency | USA
Vault12, a company building the first personal cryptocurrency security solution to provide distributed, decentralized backup of crypto assets for individual users, has raised funding from Winklevoss Capital, True Ventures, Naval Ravikant and Data Collective.
Token Offerings
$89.5M was raised in token offerings in October 2019.
01/10/2019 | Phun | Undisclosed | Loyalty | USA
Phun has conducted an IEO on Liquid and is raising an undisclosed amount.
07/10/2019 | NuCypher | $10,700,000 | Security | USA
NuCypher, an encryption startup, has raised $10.7M via a SAFT. The investment was led by Polychain, with participation from Bitmain, Bitfury, Y Combinator Continuity Fund, Compound VC, Notation Capital, DHVC, Hashed, Arrington XRP Capital and CoinFund.
23/10/2019 | Kava Labs | $3,000,000 | Blockchain | USA
Kava Labs conducted an IEO on the Binance Launchpad platform and raised $3M by selling 6.5M tokens through a lottery.
24/10/2019 | Nervos Network | $72,000,000 | Blockchain | China
Nervos has raised $72M in a token sale hosted on Coinlist, with participants that include China Merchants Bank International (CMBI), Polychain Capital, Blockchain Capital, Hashkey Capital, MultiCoin Capital, and Distributed Global.
29/10/2019 | Synthetix | $3,800,000 | Financial Services | Australia
Synthetix, a DeFi project, has sold $3.8M in tokens to Framework Ventures in a private sale.
Mergers & Acquisitions
04/10/2019 | Infura | Undisclosed | Blockchain | USA
Infura, an API and developer tools provider for Ethereum, has been acquired by ConsenSys.
14/10/2019 | TechRyu | Undisclosed | Blockchain
TechRyu, a blockchain software development house, previously part of the NKB Group, has been acquired by Vacuumlabs.
21/10/2019 | O3 Labs | Undisclosed | Blockchain | Japan
O3 Labs, the bitcoin development startup that has previously built applications for the NEO and Ontology network, has been acquired by Bitcoin.com.
29/10/2019 | MyToken | Undisclosed | Trading & Investment | China
MyToken, a blockchain information company announced that it has been acquired by a Hong Kong blockchain investment fund for hundreds of millions of RMB, and Xingxing Capital was the exclusive financial advisor.
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.
