Funding Roundup: Binance Labs invests in BIO Protocol

This week’s election frenzy dominated headlines, pushing funding news to the sidelines. However, a few notable deals did manage to break through the noise. Here’s what made the cut.

First up, Binance Labs made headlines Friday with its first foray into DeSci (decentralized science), investing in BIO Protocol through its $10 billion venture arm.

“BIO can be thought of as a Y Combinator for onchain Science,” Binance said in a statement.

The amount invested was not disclosed.

Binance Labs wasn’t the only firm busy making investments; Tether also announced on Friday that its investment division had “financed a physical crude oil transaction between a publicly traded super-major oil company and a top-tier commodity trader,” which was completed back in October.

“…The transaction was to facilitate the loading and transporting of 670,000 barrels of Middle Eastern crude oil, valued at approximately $45 million. This transaction marks Tether Investments’ first crude oil transaction in the region and highlights the company’s expanding role in global commodities trading,” Tether said in a statement.

And finally, the Pharos layer-1 closed an $8 million seed round, with Lightspeed Faction and Hack VC leading the charge.

“The company plans to utilize the funding to accelerate the development of the Pharos protocol and drive the growth of the ecosystem and community,” Pharos said in a statement.

Other investors included MH Ventures, Reforge and Hash Global.

“At Pharos, we are driven by our belief to bridge existing [fintech] services with trustless Web3 innovations to onboard billions of new users and real-world assets into the Web3 ecosystem. This seed round propels us closer to realizing that vision,” Pharos CEO Alex Zhang said.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
Empire: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.
Forward Guidance: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.
0xResearch: Alpha directly in your inbox.
Lightspeed: All things Solana.
The Drop: Apps, games, memes and more.
Supply Shock: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.