Hello world, and welcome to Dove Mountain Weekly #5!
Today, we are digging into Southeast Asia’s growing role in the crypto fundraising space.
In April 2021, tier-1 funds ParaFi Capital, Multicoin Capital, Hashed, and Spartan Group led Coin98 Labs’ seed round, a few weeks only after Alameda Research announced they had invested $4M in Coin98 Finance.
Coin98 is building a multichain DeFi ecosystem in Southeast Asia and a good example of the region’s growing importance in the crypto fundraising space.
Deal activity in Southeast Asia has been growing tremendously since June 2020. A number of factors likely contribute to this growth including rising demand for DeFi, an increasing number of experienced teams, and a growing userbase.
Projects located in Southeast Asia raised $197.5M in Q2 2021 — a 167% increase since Q1 2021. With $48M raised by builders based in Singapore in Q2 2021 only, there is no doubt that the city-state is a key driver of the burgeoning enthusiasm observed in the region.
Here are some of the major rounds:
imToken ($30M) — with participation from Qiming Venture Partners, IDG Capital, Breyer Capital, Signum Capital, Longling Capital, SNZ Holding, Xinjun Liang, and others.
Enjin ($19M) — with participation from Crypto.com Capital, DFG (Dynamic Fintech Group), Hashed, Blocktower Capital, Blockchain.com, Fenbushi Capital, Arrington XRP Capital, and others.
Kine Protocol ($7M) — with participation from Krypital Group, OKEX, Alexander Pack, NGC Ventures, Blockchain Capital, CMS Holdings, Ascensive Assets, Bixin Ventures, DeFi Alliance, Origin Capital, Honglian Capital, The Spartan Group, and others.
Pintu ($6M) — with participation from Pantera Capital, Intudo Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Alameda Research, and Blockchain.com.
The most attractive verticals are CeFi and DeFi, which represented 73% of the total amount raised. Not surprisingly, DeFi is catching up. Indeed, the DeFi infrastructure in the region is getting built up and hunger for high yields is driving up an already strong interest. On the investor’s side, there are currently more than 85 active crypto funds based in Southeast Asia, compared to 55 in Europe.
Feel free to have a look at Dove Mountain Data, the richest dataset ever publicly released on crypto fundraising rounds.
We have included last week’s 21 fundraising rounds:
Parrot Protocol ($5M) — with participation from Alameda Research, Qtum VC, NGC Ventures, Petrock Capital, Coin98 Ventures, Mgnr, SinoGlobal Capital, SkyVision Capital, Solar Eco Fund, Chris McCann, Edith Yueng, and ROK Capital.
Copper ($25M) — with participation from Alan Howard.
Instadapp ($10M) — with participation from DeFi Alliance, LongHash Ventures, Andre Cronje, and others.
Red Date Technology ($30M) — with participation from Kenetic, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, Pictet Group, and Bangkok Bank.
Ledger ($380M) — with participation from 10T Fund, Felix Capital, Uphold, Tekne Capital, iAngels Technologies, Rosemoor Capital Management, Marcy Venture Partners, Libertus Capital, The Maze Group, Scott Galloway, and Wicklow Capital.
Jet Protocol ($4.8M) — with participation from Mgnr, SinoGlobal Capital, CMS Holdings, Alameda Research, ParaFi Capital, Robot Ventures, DeFiance Capital, Kenetic, Stable Node, Meltem Demirors, John Fiorelli, Mason Borda, Aya Kantorovich, Jed Breed, and Tegan Kline.
BC Group ($70M) — with participation from GIC.
Circulor ($14M) — with participation from The Westly Group, Salesforce Ventures, BHP Ventures, Sky Ocean Ventures, Future Positive Capital, and 24Haymarket.
XCarnival ($2M) — with participation from Incuba Alpha Labs, Fundamental Labs, Everest Ventures, AU21 Capital, Gate.io, NGC Ventures, Digital Finance Group, LD Capital, Zonff Partners, and Waterdrip capital.
Foundation Devices ($2M) — with participation from Unpopular Ventures, Third Prime, Deep Ventures, Fulgur Ventures, Inflection Venture Partners, Massachusetts Avenue Capital, and Bolt.
Solana Labs ($314M) — with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, Alameda Research, CMS Holdings, CoinShares, Jump Trading, Multicoin Capital, and SinoGlobal Capital.
Divergence ($2.9M) — with participation from Mechanism Capital, KR1, Nothing Research, Focus Labs, Arrington XRP Capital, P2P Capital, Orthogonal Trading, Taureon Capital, Hashkey Capital, YouBi Capital, Digital Finance Group, Do Kwon, Diane Dai, Sandeep Nailwal, and Igor Barinov.
Hummingbot ($8M) — with participation from Initialized Capital, Slow Ventures, Arrington XRP Capital, Borderless Capital, DeFiance Capital, Terra, AVA Labs, AscendEX, Altonomy, and NEM Ventures.
RMRK ($6M) — with participation from YBB Foundation, Moonwhale Ventures, PAKA, Digital Finance Group, D1 Ventures, LD Capital, Signum Capital, Illusionist Group, Shard Labs, and CarbonBlue Innovations.
Luxor ($5M) — with participation from NYDIG, HODL Capital, Bitnomial, Blockware Solutions, and Celsius Network.
Mythical Games ($75M) — with participation from WestCap, VaynerFund, Galaxy Digital, Javelin Venture Partners, Struck Capital, Alumni Ventures Group, and 01 Advisors.
peaq ($2.5M) — with participation from Werner Geissler, Scherzer & Co., and Meteoric VC.
Guild of Guardians ($3M) — with participation from Yield Guild Games.
Flare ($11.3M) — with participation from Kenetic, CoinFund, Digital Currency Group, LD Capital, cFund, Wave Financial, Borderless Capital, Backend Capital, Charlie Lee, Do Kwon, Genesis Capital, Kinetic Capital, and New Form Capital.
Blockdaemon ($28M) — with participation from Goldman Sachs, CoinShares, BlockFi, Uphold, Greenspring Associates, and Voyager Digital Ltd.
Snickerdoodle ($2.3M) — with participation from Kenetic, Blockchain Capital, Struck Capital, Zilliqa Capital, Tribe Capital, and Sam Bankman-Fried.
We have also added the following investors: SkyBridge 20 Ventures, OIG Investment Group, There Exists Ventures, Legion Ventures, TrustDao Capital, Empire Global Partners, Backend Capital, Shard Labs, QTUM VC, and many angels.
Join our newly launched Telegram Group and follow our Twitter account to stay up to date and get notified when content is out!
See you on Thursday for Thursday Thoughts #2,
The Dove Mountain Team