Crypto Fundraising Rises Amid Cautious Investor Sentiment

The crypto fundraising sector saw a significant surge in activity in July. Data from Messari indicates that month-over-month deal volume increased by 72.9%, reaching $1.44 billion, although the total number of deals slightly decreased to 177. Notably, Pantera Capital and Mirana Ventures led the largest early-stage investments among venture firms.

Despite this growth, venture capitalists are exercising greater caution. Adam Cochran from Cinneamhain Ventures pointed out that limited partners (LPs), who typically seek to outperform index fund returns, are finding more favorable risk-reward ratios in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) compared to investing in early-stage startups.

LPs are becoming increasingly concerned about their returns. A recent survey conducted by law firm Barnes & Thornburg revealed that investors are now prioritizing liquidity and higher earnings, with many advocating for more advantageous financing terms.

This edition of Cointelegraph’s VC Roundup highlights some startups that secured funding in early August, particularly focusing on decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN).

Parfin Secures $10 Million in Series A Funding

Digital asset infrastructure provider Parfin has successfully completed a $10 million Series A funding round, led by ParaFi Capital. Other participants included Framework Ventures, L4 Venture Builder, and Núclea.

Parfin anticipates that total funding will reach $16 million after the second closing. The company plans to use the funds to expand its operations in Asia, Latin America, and Europe, as well as to develop its enterprise-grade blockchain, Rayls, which integrates permissioned and public blockchains for institutional clients.

To date, Parfin has raised a total of $38 million, with notable clients such as B3 Digitas, a digital asset subsidiary of the Brazilian Stock Exchange, and Banco BV.

Andrena Raises $18 Million for Decentralized Wireless Internet

Wireless internet service provider Andrena has raised $18 million to launch DAWN, a decentralized autonomous wireless network. The investment was led by Dragonfly, with participation from CMT Digital, Castle Island Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, 6th Man Ventures, ParaFi, and others.

DAWN aims to provide decentralized broadband using multi-gigabit wireless technology, enabling individual homes to act as network hosts through their own internet infrastructure. The protocol employs proof of location and proof of frequency to establish trustless consensus.

Currently, Andrena offers internet services across 10 states in the U.S. and has launched a Proof of Backhaul Validator Chrome Extension, allowing global users to participate as validator nodes and test the network's speeds. Participants can earn rewards for staying connected, referring friends, and serving as validators.

Blockscout Raises $3 Million Seed Round for EVM Data Exploration

Open-source block explorer Blockscout has completed a $3 million seed round led by 1kx, with additional investments from Primitive Ventures, Gnosis, and several angel investors including Evan Van Ness, Alex Svanevik, Kartik Talwar, Anton Bukov, and Stefan George.

Blockscout is designed for EVM networks, enabling users to access detailed information about blockchain transactions, blocks, addresses, and other on-chain data. The funding will be utilized to enhance the product suite, improve user experience, and expand its Explorer-as-a-Service (EaaS) offering. Blockscout supports over 600 networks and provides both self-hosted and hosted explorer services.

BITKRAFT Ventures Leads $7.5 Million Series A for Cartridge's Onchain Games

Game developer Cartridge has secured $7.5 million in a Series A funding round led by BITKRAFT Ventures, with additional contributions from Fabric, Dune, StarkWare, Primitive, and Ergodic.

The funding will support the launch of Dojo 1.0, an open-source framework and toolset for blockchain-based game developers. Dojo aims to simplify the development and deployment of on-chain virtual worlds, significantly reducing development time.

Cartridge is also developing a rollup-as-a-service tailored for on-chain games, named Slot and Controller, which serves as a gaming-specific smart contract wallet.