October crypto VC roundup: Throwing money at blockchain gaming startups

This article is part of a new monthly series from The Block that takes a closer look at where the most recent venture capital investments have been flowing.

One category clearly stands out when it comes to recent venture funding announcements in the crypto world: NFTs and blockchain gaming.

According to data compiled by The Block Research, roughly 43% of the $3.4 billion worth of venture capital (VC) deals in October involved startups focused on games, NFTs or both. 

Leading the way was Sky Mavis, creator of the “play-to-earn” phenomenon Axie Infinity. But the range of ventures that attracted investment is fairly broad. A sci-fi card game using NFTs raised $50 million. A creator of art for video games and NFTs raised $25 million. And a designer toy company raised $20 million to create a virtual world populated by cartoons.

Firms focused on crypto trading, including exchanges and brokers, were also very popular during October, seeing over $1 billion in investments. FTX raised more than $420 million by itself.

Below is a roundup — organized by category — of all the VC fundraises worth more than $10 million that were announced in October.

NFTs, and gaming and the metaverse, oh my!

There were 10 raises over $10 million for firms focused specifically on NFTs or blockchain gaming.

• Sky Mavis, the creator of the NFT game Axie Infinity, raised $152 million in a Series B round led by a16z. Accel and Paradigm also participated in the round.
  
  
• NFT startup Candy Digital raised $100 million in a Series A funding round that brought its valuation to $1.5 billion. The round was co-led by Insight Partners and Sequoia Capital.
  
  
• Blockchain gaming developer Animoca Brands raised $65 million in its third funding round since May — and now the company is valued at $2.2 billion.
  
  
• Parallel, a sci-fi card game based on the Ethereum blockchain, raised $50 million in a new funding round led by Paradigm at a half-billion-dollar valuation. Previous investors include YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley, Focus Labs, OSS Capital and Yunt Capital.
  
  
• Social sports gaming developer GreenPark Sports raised $31 million to speed up the development of an NFT-based, multi-sport-themed metaverse. Galaxy Interactive, Sapphire Sport, SignalFire and Advantage co-led the round.
  
  
• Concept Art House, a creator of art for video games and NFT collectibles, raised $25 million. Investors include Dapper Labs, Animoca Brands, Hashkey and Liberty City Ventures.
  
  
• Superplastic, a designer toy brand, raised $20 million to build a virtual world populated with cartoon influencers. Its investors include high-profile firms such as Google Ventures, Index Ventures, Founders Fund, Galaxy Digital and angel investors like Justin Timberlake.
  
  
• Mojito, the NFT startup supporting Sotheby's Metaverse platform, raised $20 million in its first funding round. Future Perfect Ventures led the round, with participation from Moore Strategic Ventures, CMT Digital, Sfermion and Ancient.
  
  
• Nameless, a software developer for the issuance, testing, and sale of NFTs, raised a $15 million seed round led by Mechanism Capital. Other investors include Delphi Digital, Fenbushi Capital, Spartan Group, Flamingo DAO and The LAO.
  
  
• Unique Network, which is building an NFT chain for Polkadot and Kusama networks, raised $11.3 million. Outlier Ventures led the round. The LAO, Flamingo and over 200 other investors also joined.

Boring but important: Exchanges, brokers, custodians and lenders

October saw 10 raises above $10 million by firms specifically focused on cryptocurrency trading. The headliner was FTX, the Bahamas-based exchange founded in 2017 by Sam Bankman-Fried.

Some crypto custodians have also raised money, and some others such as Copper and Anchorage are said to be raising capital as demand for safekeeping solutions rises, particularly among corporations and traditional financial institutions. Crypto lending platforms are also getting popular due to the high interest rates they offer compared with traditional saving accounts.

VC firms have backed startups in this category all over the world, including the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

• Crypto exchange FTX raised $420.69 million in a new funding round after raising crypto's largest-ever amount — $900 million — in July. The October round saw participation from 69 investors, including Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, Temasek, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.
  
  
• Crypto custodian Copper is said to be raising up to $500 million in a new funding round that will raise its valuation to more than $1 billion.
  
  
• Crypto lending platform Celsius Network raised $400 million. The investment was led by WestCap and CDPQ, Canada's second-largest pension fund. Celsius is now valued at more than $3 billion.
  
  
• Indian crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber raised $260 million in a Series C funding round and is now a unicorn valued at $1.9 billion. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Coinbase Ventures backed the round, along with other existing investors. Notably, this was a16z's first-ever investment in an Indian startup.
  
  
• CoinList raised $100 million in Series A funding at a $1.5 billion valuation from investors led by Accomplice and Agman.
  
  
• Crypto trading platform Voyager Digital raised $75 million from Alameda Research.
  
  
• Dubai-based Crypto exchange BitOasis raised $30 million in a Series B funding round co-led by Jump Capital and Wamda Capital.
  
  
• Crypto on-ramp specialist Ramp is said to have raised a $30 million Series A fundraise led by British venture capital firm Balderton Capital.
  
  
• XanPool, a Hong Kong-based payments infrastructure firm that provides crypto on and off-ramp services, raised $27 million in a Series A funding round. Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures led the round.
  
  
• Makor Capital, a brokerage and investment banking group, raised $17 million in Series A funding to grow Enigma Securities, its digital asset brokerage. Its backers include Algorand and billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard.
  
  
• New Zealand-based crypto exchange Easy Crypto raised $11.75 million in a Series A funding round led by Nuance Connected Capital. The exchange is looking to launch an IPO in the future.
  
  
• Crypto custodian Hex Trust raised $10 million in fresh funding. Animoca Brands led the round, with Algorand Foundation, Ripple Labs and others participating.
  
  
• French crypto primer broker SheeldMarket raised $10 million in a Series A funding round. Atomico led the round, with Semantic Ventures Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier and others participating.
  
  
• “Centralized decentralized finance” crypto lending platform SmartFi raised over $10 million in a token sale.
  
  
• Crypto custody firm Anchorage is said to be raising a large funding round that will value the company at between $2 billion and $3 billion.

Don’t forget DeFi

Last month there were five raises larger than $10 million for DeFi projects. Venture investment in DeFi has dramatically increased this year. In 2020, around 125 DeFi startups raised money and this year to date, over 225 DeFi projects have raised funds, according to data compiled by CB Insights and The Block.

Lately, VC firms have been backing more non-Ethereum projects, such as Solana, Cosmos and NEAR, as they apparently see more upside potential on different networks.

• DeFi fixed-rate protocol Element Finance raised a $32 million Series A funding round at a $320 million valuation. Polychain Capital led the round. Previous investors a16z and Placeholder also participated.
  
  
• Sommelier Finance, former Cosmos lead developer Zaki Manian's crypto project that helps automate DeFi trading, raised $23 million in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Alameda, Zola Ventures, Byzantine Ventures and others.
  
  
• Osmosis, a decentralized exchange or DEX on the Cosmos blockchain, raised $21 million in a token sale led by Paradigm.
  
  
• Futureswap, a DEX for trading perpetual swaps, raised $12 million. Ribbit Capital, Framework Ventures, True Ventures and Placeholder all co-led the round. This was Ribbit Capital's first investment in a DEX, according to Futureswap.
  
  
• Aurora Labs, a crypto project that has built an Ethereum-compatible development platform on top of NEAR Protocol, raised $12 million in an equity funding round. Pantera Capital and Electric Capital co-led the round. Overall, more than 100 investors participated in the round.

Tools of the trade

The remaining 10 October fundraises on this list don’t fit neatly into a category. But they tend to involve firms developing various sorts of tools — tools for traders, blockchain developers and blockchain investigators. This also includes payment tools.

• TradingView, a charting platform that provides data on assets that include crypto, raised $298 million at a $3 billion valuation in a funding round led by Tiger Global Management.
  
  
• Blockchain developer tools provider Alchemy raised $250 million in a Series C round of funding. a16z led the round. New investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Redpoint Ventures and existing investors Coatue Management, Addition, DFJ (Draper Fisher Jurvetson), and Pantera Capital also backed the round.
  
  
• Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic raised $60 million in a Series C funding round. The round was led by Evolution Equity Partners, with participation from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and many others.
  
  
• Blockchain development platform QuickNode raised $35 million in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Tiger Global with participation from Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six, Soma Capital, Anthony Pompliano and others.
  
  
• Worldcoin raised $25 million at a $1 billion valuation. Investors include a16z, Coinbase Ventures, CoinFund, Digital Currency Group, Three Arrows Capital, Reid Hoffman, Sam Bankman-Fried and others. Worldcoin is developing an orb-shaped identification device that can read a person's iris in the eyes. It aims to give cryptocurrency to every person on the earth.
  
  
• Indian short video app Chingari raised $19 million to build its own social token called $GARI on Solana.
  
  
• Blockstream raised $16.1 million in the sixth tranche of its Bitcoin mining-focused security token known as Blockstream Mining Note (BMN).
  
  
• Connected Medical System (CMST), a China-based developer of a blockchain-based medical record system, raised 100 million yuan ($15.6 million). Hillhouse Ventures and Sequoia Capital China co-led the round.
  
  
• Colombian fintech Movii raised $15 million in a Series B funding round to create a bitcoin purchasing service and expand other services. Square and Hard Yaka, an investment fund founded by former Ripple chief risk officer Greg Kidd, co-led the round.
  
  
• Crypto payments startup MoonPay is reportedly raising $400 million as its first round of venture capital at a $3.4 billion valuation, including the investment. Tiger Global Management and Coatue Management are said to be co-leading the round.

New crypto VC funds

Venture capital firms have to raise funds too. According to data from Pitchbook, the more than $8 billion that crypto VCs have grabbed this year is nearly four times more than last year at this point. Some mega-rounds in October are from firms such as NFX, Galaxy Interactive and Sino Global Capital.

• NFX raised $450 million to invest in early-stage companies of all sectors, including crypto. One of the firm's general partners is Libra co-creator Morgan Beller, and it is looking to fund crypto startups with billion-user potential.
  
  
• Galaxy Interactive, an affiliate of Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital, raised a $325 million fund to invest in the "interactive" sector, which the company defines as the intersection of content, finance and technology. Of the raised amount, nearly $150 million has already been invested.
  
  
• CMCC Global, a Hong Kong-based venture capital firm, is seeking to raise $300 million for its latest crypto fund. The firm was an early investor in Solana and has also backed Cosmos and Terra.
  
  
• Multicoin Capital is reportedly planning to raise $250 million for its third crypto-focused venture fund.
  
  
• Sino Global Capital, the China-based crypto venture capital firm led by Matthew Graham, launched a $200 million fund with backing from FTX. The fund will invest across crypto projects, including DeFi and NFT infrastructure.
  
  
• Variant launched its second fund worth $110 million to continue investing in the "ownership economy — from consumer platforms to gaming to infrastructure to DeFi."
  
  
• Meta4 Capital launched a new fund to invest up to $100 million in "ultra-rare" NFTs. The fund has backing from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as its lead investor and others.
  
  
• A new crypto venture capital firm called Patron debuted with $90 million in funding. The firm will invest in early-stage startups in a convergence of games, consumers and Web3.
  
  
• Bitkraft Ventures, founded by gaming and esports veteran Jens Hilgers, raised a $75 million token fund for blockchain gaming and digital entertainment investments.
  
  
• Tribe Capital is reportedly launching a $75 million crypto fund to invest in early-stage projects. The fund is said to make 75% of its investments in U.S. projects and 25% internationally.
  
  
• Crypto-focused venture capital firm Collab+Currency raised $60 million for its second fund to invest in early-stage projects, including DeFi. It will write checks between $250,000 and $2 million.
  
  
• Crowdfunding platform Republic launched a $60 million seed fund to invest in crypto startups.
  
  
• Crypto asset management firm Arca launched a new $30 million fund called Arca Endeavor Fund. The fund will invest in startups such as DeFi, gaming, sports, music and fan engagement, NFTs and financial services.