Financing summary: USD 1.34 billion that were invested in crypto companies and funds this week

Financing summary: USD 1.34 billion that were invested in crypto companies and funds this week

March started as a crypto company and funds equally brought in another considerable week of capital, which approached a total of $ 1.34 billion. The total money invested this week came from over 20 deals and funds, as Pitchbook data showed.

The greatest increase of the week came from Electric Capital. The company collected $ 1 billion to set up two funds: a $ 400-million venture fund and a $ 600 token fund. In addition to large funds such as Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z), Paradigm and 10t Holdings

On Thursday, the well-known risk capital company A16Z invested $ 70 million in the Defi-Staking platform Lido. The decentralized platform offers users Ethereum-Staking and other proof-of-stake assets via a governance structure of a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

The fresh funds of A16Z are used to expand its staking solution and prepare upgrades around the transition from Ethereum from Proof-Work to Proof-of-Stake, Jacob Blish, Head of Business Development and Partnerships at Lido, told Blockworks.

"The Roadmap for 2022 prioritizes the upgrade of the Ethereum network, research and building a layer 2 solutions and the expansion to a number of new protocols," said Blish.

Since the beginning of 2022, Lido Liquid Staking has introduced Kusama and polygon and plans to add polar cadot, avalanche and cosmos in the second half of the year. In other messages, Arcanum Capital, a risk capital company in the Seed phase, put on its first fund of $ 12 million on Wednesday to concentrate on blockchain technology companies in emerging countries-mainly in India.

"We put on the fund because we wanted a vehicle in which we can include considerable institutional capital in order to then use it in India and to achieve a great effect," James McDowall, founding partner at Arcanum Capital, told Blockworks.

The company's fund includes prominent investors such as the Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, the risk capital provider Tim Draper and the risk capital arm of Bybit, Mirana Ventures. To date, Arcanum has invested around $ 4 million in over 20 startups.

"We see that blockchain technology revolutionizes almost every industry," said McDowall.

"Defi alone has a market share of trillion dollars. Add the [non-fungable tokens] games and decentralized applications, and it is clear that blockchain is a gigantic technology trend that is still in its infancy."

Further remarkable capital increases this week are:

• The $ 50 million round of the South African crypto exchange Valr
• Thetanuts Finance completed an $ 18 million round to democratize defi-structured products
• Pantera Capital led a $ 33 million round for subspace labs to advance his web3 efforts
• MultiCoin Capital and Jump Crypto jointly lead a Seed-investition in that Smart messaging protocol dialect
• Ignite Touraments completed a finance round of $ 10 million to set up a Play-to-Earn-ESPORTS tournament and a streaming platform