Dove Dispatch #11
The Old Continent Discovers New Finance
Hello world, and welcome to Dove Dispatch #11!
Please note that as part of a broad rebranding process, some links and account names have changed. Dove Mountain Data is now Dove Metrics, the crypto fundraising database.
Today, we are digging into the European DeFi fundraising market. The European market has been growing quickly - just look at the surge in Euro-backed stablecoin Stasis. Europe, particularly the United Kingdom, has always been a center of fintech innovation: Revolut and Transferwise raised $3B combined. Now, Europe is attempting to position itself as a crypto hub, led by success stories like Argent, Aave, Centrifuge, and Nexus Mutual.
So far 56 European DeFi teams have raised funds this year, with that $282M haul representing ~20% of the global total. Some noteworthy rounds:
Beyond ($7.5M) — with participation from DuckDAO, Rarestone Capital, and others.
Gro ($7M) — with participation from Galaxy Digital, Northzone, Nascent, and others.
Element Finance ($4M) — with participation from Placeholder, A.capital, Scalar Capital, Robot Ventures, Joseph Lubin, Fernando Martinelli, Stani Kulechov, Tarun Chitra, Andreessen Horowitz, and others.
Liquity ($6M) — with participation from Pantera Capital, Nima Capital, Meltem Demirors, Calvin Liu, George Lambeth, and others.
Zooming in, it’s clear the UK is leading this charge. UK-based teams accounted for 45% of European H1 fundraising rounds.
The Infrastructure category (i.e. liquidity layers and real-world assets bridges) represents 58% of the total funding received, with Lending/Borrowing and Trading-related ventures coming in second and third, respectively.
On the investment side, 12% of the funds actively investing in DeFi are based in Europe with four distinct leading countries accounting for 75%+ of the total number of DeFi European funds — the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Switzerland.
Last week 11 projects announced fundraising rounds:
CryptoArt.Ai ($2.4M) | The largest decentralized NFT marketplace in Asia, including NFT creation, sell, auctions, collect, and transfer — with participation from Digital Finance Group, Waterdrip Capital, Kirin Fund, SoftBank, imToken Ventures, Signum Capital, AU21 Capital, Consensus Lab, Lancer Capital, Damo Labs, Chain Capital, Bitrise Capital, Legos Capital, LD Capital, Gate.io, Ti Capital, Chain Renaissance, R8 Capital, Skywater Capital, Bella, Amedeo Capital, N7 Labs, Quest Capital, 7 O'Clock Capital, CryptoDiffer, Candaq, Homi Global Investment, Beepcrypto, YBB Foundation, Searchlight Capital, BitMart, ChainVC.Ltd, Anduyo Nelson, Poolz Ventures, Sky High Tech Limited, Nova Club, and MathWallet.
PolyWhirl ($500k) | A completely decentralized platform for making private transactions on Polygon — with participation from Bigcoin Capital, Block Phoenix, Grizzly Capital, Nodeseeds, Chain Flow Capital, OIG Investment Group, County Capital, Halvings Capital, and Arkn Ventures.
Thesis ($21M) | A cryptocurrency venture studio funding and building decentralized products and protocols that enable personal empowerment — with participation from ParaFi Capital, Nascent, Polychain Capital, Collab+Currency, Fenbushi Capital, Dragonfly Capital, Lemniscap, Nima Capital, Draper Associates, and Boost VC.
Magic ($27M) | Aims to make passwordless the gold standard for online applications — with participation from Northzone, Tiger Global Management, Volt Capital, Digital Currency Group, CoinFund, Placeholder, Cherubic Ventures, SVAngel, Guillermo Rauch, Alexis Ohanian, Balaji Srinivasan, Ben Pruess, Casey Neistat, Guillermo Rauch, Jacob Jaber, Kayvon Beykpour, Roham Gharegozlou, Ryan Hoover, Sahil Lavingia, Scott Belsky, Soona Amhaz, and Varsha Rao.
EthBlockArt | Enabling to create your own deterministic blockchain art painting Ethereum blocks, mint NFTs, earn as a creative coder — with participation from CoinFund, Divergence Ventures, MetaCartel Ventures, and Focus Labs.
Virtually Human Studio (ZED RUN) ($20M) | The #1 NFT horse racing game built on Ethereum — with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Red Beard Ventures, The Chernin Group, and others.
Coin98 Labs ($11.25M) | A DeFi product builder focusing on creating & developing an ecosystem of DeFi protocols, applications on multiple blockchains — with participation from Hashed, Spartan Group, ParaFi Capital, IOSG Ventures, GBV Capital, Nascent, SNZ Holding, Asymm Ventures, NGC Ventures, Vessel Capital, BTC12 Capital, Evernew Capital, AU21 Capital, Solidity Ventures, Paribus Ventures, Origin Capital, Moonwhale Ventures, K300 Ventures, Magnus Capital, Kyros Ventures, Spark Digital Capital, Black Mamba Ventures, HC Ventures, STC Capital, BTA Ventures, and others.
4K ($3M) | NFTs for collectible physical goods — with participation from Electric Capital, Crosscut Ventures, Collab+Currency, ConsenSys Ventures, and IDEO Colab Ventures.
FTX ($900M) | A cryptocurrency derivatives exchange company built by traders, for traders — with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, Thomas Bravo, Insight Partners, SoftBank, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Bond Capital, SinoGlobal Capital, Multicoin Capital, Paul Tudor Jones, Alan Howard, Circle, and VanEck.
Visor Finance ($3.5M) | A DeFi protocol for Active Liquidity Management - building on Uniswap v3 — with participation from GSR, 1kx, Electric Capital, DeFi Alliance, Maven 11 Capital, Tribe Capital, 1confirmation, Digital Currency Group, Blockchain Capital, Decentral Park Capital, and Spartan Group.
OpenSea ($100M) | A peer-to-peer marketplace for NFTs, rare digital items, and crypto collectibles — with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Ashton Kutcher, Coatue Management, Creative Artists Agency, Dylan Field, Kevin Durant, Kevin Hartz, and Tobi Lutke.
We have also added the following investors: Decentral Park Capital, Valhalla Capital, Elness Capital, K300 Ventures, HC Ventures, Serum Stakers, Everse Capital, Crosscut Ventures, Refactor Capital, Legos Capital, Ti Capital, Chain Renaissance, Skywater Capital, Amedeo Capital, Homi Global Investment, Beepcrypto, ChainVC.Ltd, and many angels.
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See you on Thursday for Thursday Thoughts #8,
The Dove Team