James Cirrone

Eleven crypto startups pulled in a collective $66.7 million in new early stage funding rounds this week.&nbsp;



Coming in at number one was SynFutures with a $22 million series B fundraise. Pantera Capital led the round for the crypto and NFT futures DEX, along with Susquehanna International Group and HashKey Capital.



Alongside this significant cash injection from top crypto venture capital firms, SynFutures also <a href="https://medium.com/synfutures/introducing-the-v3-public-testnet-28994fc29288">debuted</a> version three of its exchange. For now, it&#8217;s in a public testnet that can only be accessed via a desktop.



The updated model for the platform relies on a new automated market maker (AMM) called Oyster. It features an on-chain order book, a new liquidation framework specifically for derivatives trading, and a way to provide liquidity through a single token of a trading pair.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/derivatives-trading-dex-funding">SynFutures raises $22 million, introduces public testnet for v3</a>



Speaking of liquidity on DEXs, Elixir Protocol just raised $7.5 million to address that exact issue.&nbsp;



The funds for the DeFi protocol were raised at a $100 million valuation, with Hack VC leading the round. NGC Ventures, AngelList Ventures, Bloccelerate and various angels also invested.&nbsp;



With the additional cash now on hand, Elixir wants to help <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/dexs">DEXs</a> and other protocols be able to adopt a decentralized order book model by helping provide liquidity to get trades off the ground.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Metaverse gets a win</h2>



Upland, a metaverse aiming to mimic the terrain of the real world, raised $7 million on Friday as part of an extension of its 2021 series A round.



Existing investors C3 Venture Capital and Animoca Brands contributed to the round as did new investor EOS Network Ventures.&nbsp;



Upland allows its users to own virtual property mapped to the real-world geography of Earth. And like our planet, real estate on Upland varies quite a bit in price depending on the location you choose, Upland chief of staff Danny Brown Wolf told Blockworks in September 2022.



Blockworks previously reported that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/upland-kaboom-nfts-crypto-fundraise-playground-us-access">Upland users directed a fundraising campaign for a nonprofit building playgrounds</a> in communities that lack them.&nbsp;



As of last month, Upland has raised just shy of $90,000 for charitable causes through sales of in-game map assets, in other words, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/nfts">NFTs</a>.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Other notable fundraises</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Crypto price aggregator Coin Metrics raised over $6.7 million, according to a Wednesday <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1758833/000175883323000002/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml">SEC filing</a>.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Solana treasury asset manager Squads Protocol <a href="https://twitter.com/SquadsProtocol/status/1713968139023827056">secured</a> $5.7 million in a round led by Placeholder with a smattering of other participating VCs.</li>



<li>MyShell, an opBNB-based AI tool provider, <a href="https://medium.com/myshell-ai/myshell-secures-5-6-million-seed-funding-to-revolutionize-the-ai-native-app-landscape-b744327a235c">received</a> $5.6 million in a seed round with INCE Capital, Folius Ventures, Hashkey Capital and more investing.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Beluga <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231019826261/en/Beluga-Raises-4M-Seed-Round-to-Provide-a-Trusted-Platform-for-Crypto-Users-to-Invest-with-Confidence">raised</a> $4 million in seed funding from head investor Fin Capital and over a dozen others. It’s a platform designed to onboard newcomers into crypto and Web3.</li>



<li>Darewise Entertainment <a href="https://www.animocabrands.com/darewise-entertainment-raises-usd-3500000-in-token-presale">raised</a> $3.5 million through a presale of an upcoming token meant to undergird its eventual Bitcoin metaverse offering.</li>



<li>Third Time Entertainment, which created a token-based virtual horse race betting game, closed on a $2 million plus seed round.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Fileverse, a decentralized version of Google Docs and/or Medium, <a href="https://twitter.com/fileverse/status/1714288331570471336">announced</a> it raised $1.5 million on a pre-seed basis from companies, VCs and angel investors.</li>



<li>Hardware wallet provider Ryder <a href="https://www.prweb.com/releases/ryder-announces-new-hardware-wallet-replacing-seed-phrases--1-2m-raise-from-oak-grove-ventures-trust-machines-muneeb-ali-sbx-capital--others-301962021.html">raised</a> $1.2 million from multiple investors.</li>
</ul>



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Crypto funding: A focus on decentralized orderbook exchanges in $66M week

Jacquelyn Melinek

<div id="highlights-block_6202787c627fb" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The protocol launched its beta product on Ethereum’s mainnet last year with a select number of DAOs, including Fantom, Terra, Injective, Unilend, Parsiq, Ramp and Marlin</li>
 <li>It plans to launch its token liquidity infrastructure across layer-1 blockchain networks like Terra, Avalanche and Fantom, Co-founder and CEO Austin King said</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Decentralized protocol Rift Finance has raised $18 million to help DAOs with liquidity as the sector heats up.



The round was led by <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/pantera-capital-ceo-terra-is-one-of-the-most-promising-coins-for-the-coming-year/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pantera Capital</a>. Other investors include Two Sigma Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Spartan Group, Defiance Capital, Hashed, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/jump-capital-launches-350m-fund-with-focus-on-crypto-defi/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jump Capital</a>, Vessel Capital and Morningstar Ventures. Angel investors include Terra’s Do Kwon, Aave’s Stani Kulechov, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/polygon-closes-450m-raise-led-by-sequoia-india/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Polygon’s</a> Sandeep Nailwal and Goldentree Asset Management’s Joseph Naggar.



DAOs (<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/the-investors-guide-to-daos/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">decentralized autonomous organizations</a>) have grown tremendously in the past 12 months — in some cases, replacing traditional corporate structures.



Last month, Superdao Founder Yury Lifshits told Blockworks about 10,000 to 20,000 DAOs operate worldwide, but his firm anticipates up to <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/dao-startup-raises-10-5-million/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">one million new DAOs</a> by the end of 2022 — as long as creators have the right tools. 



Rift Finance’s Co-founders CEO Austin King and Chief Technology Officer Tyler Tarsi also told Blockworks that DAOs need the right tools to succeed.



“There’s simply not much tooling out there to help DAOs achieve deeper liquidity,” King said. “This was one of the most obvious pain points in DeFi and a great way to add value early on and support the rest of the ecosystem.”&nbsp;



The capital will be used to build out its team and the DAO community, as well as creating infrastructure, Tarsi said.&nbsp;



In the early days of DeFi (decentralized finance), liquidity mining helped act as a bridge, but Rift Finance aims to create a long-term sustainable solution to shore up DAO treasuries.



The protocol wants to help DAOs deploy governance tokens to deepen token liquidity without having to give up ownership. It pairs governance tokens with ether from retail and institutional depositors. Ultimately, DAOs receive liquidity through its protocol, and depositors receive yields in return.&nbsp;



“It&#8217;s a win-win type product to help DAOs and through that, we help expand the ecosystem,” King said.



Rift launched its beta product on Ethereum’s mainnet last year with a select number of DAOs, including Fantom, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/terra-focused-stader-labs-raised-12m-hitting-450m-valuation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Terra</a>, Injective, Unilend, Parsiq, Ramp and Marlin. Within a few days, the beta hit its $50 million total value locked cap.



“Using Rift, Fantom was able to begin controlling 32% of the FTM:ETH liquidity on SushiSwap in a single transaction,” Michael Kong, CEO of Fantom Foundation, said in a statement. “This demonstrates the power of Rift and we are excited to scale this technology out for the DAOs building in the Fantom ecosystem.”&nbsp;



Going forward, Rift plans to launch its token liquidity infrastructure across layer-1 blockchain networks like Terra, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/?s=avalanche#:~:text=The%20Investor%E2%80%99s%20Guide%20to%20Avalanche%20(AVAX)" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Avalanche</a> and Fantom.



Although it’s hard to know where the space will be, even six months from now, both King and Tarsi said the protocol plans to onboard hundreds of DAOs by the end of the year.&nbsp;



“DAOs are human capital combined with other forms of capital like social capital, financial capital, and they add value systems on-chain” Tarsi said. “We really think DAOs can start to replace more traditional organizations.”&nbsp;



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

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