In the past year, institutional investors almost doubled the amount of money pumped into venture capital. While the funds are focused on several sectors, a category that raises record-breaking fundraising is crypto and blockchain.
As per reports, the venture capital firms invested $32.8 billion in the crypto and blockchain sector in 2021, which is higher than in the previous years. With this investment, the sector churned close to 47 million unicorns (companies with $1 billion valuations).
This investment trend seems to continue this year, in 2022, wherein blockchain investments are at an all-time high. We have already seen companies in this sector, including ConsenSys minted $450 million, Block Tackle that secured $5 million and Infstones that closed $33 million.
These investments make us believe that the trend seeps in this year as well. Having said that, we at TFN have listed some highly-funded blockchain companies that have secured investments in 2022 so far.
Amber Group (Hong Kong)
Founder/s: Michael Wu
Founded year: 2017
Total funding: $328M
Based in Hong Kong, Amber Group is a global crypto finance service provider for users worldwide. It provides a full range of digital asset services ranging from investing, financing, trading, and spending. Its 24/7 trading desk serves over a thousand institutional clients globally.
A few days back, Amber Group raised $200 million in funding from Temasek, Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, Tiger Global Management, Dragonfly Capital, Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures and Blockchain.com. This round values the company at $3 billion.
Alchemy (US)
Founder/s: Nikil Viswanathan, Joe Lau
Founded year: 2017
Total funding: $545M
Blockchain infrastructure startup Alchemy wants to do what AWS (Amazon Web Services) did for the internet to blockchain and web3. It is a developer platform that empowers companies to build scalable and reliable decentralised applications.
In February, Alchemy announced that it has closed $200 million in a Series C1 equity round led by existing backer Lightspeed Venture Partners and new investor Silver Lake. With this, the valuation of the company reaches $10.2 billion.
CoinTracker (US)
Founder/s: Chandan Lodha, Jon Lerner
Founded year: 2017
Total funding: $102M
Another US blockchain company is CoinTracker. Backed by Serena Williams among others, it is a provider of cryptocurrency tax compliance. It enables seamless cryptocurrency portfolio tracking for all exchanges, wallets, and even currencies. CoinTracker automatically syncs transactions into one unified dashboard and helps users file their crypto taxes with the click of a button.
In January this year, CoinTracker picked up $100 million in a Series A funding led by Accel. Also, new and existing backers, including General Catalyst, Initialized Capital, 776 Ventures, Intuit Ventures and Kraken Ventures also participated in the round. With this, the company reached a valuation of $1.3 billion.
5ire (UK)
Founder/s: Prateek Dwivedi, Pratik Gauri, Vilma Mattila
Founded year: 2021
Total funding: $110M
Founded by Indian entrepreneurs, 5ire is a young sustainable blockchain startup. The company’s primary offering is 5ireChain, a first layer, sustainability-driven 5th generation blockchain ensuring adherence to the philosophy of 5IR, creating a net positive impact on the planet and serving humanity.
In February this year, 5ire secured a $100 million capital commitment from GEM Global Yield LLC SCS and seeks to file for an IPO. Prior to this capital infusion, 5ire’s valuation stood at $110 million.
Optimism (US)
Founder/s: Jinglan Wang, Kevin Ho
Founded year: 2019
Total funding: $175M
Optimism is an Ethereum-based decentralised infrastructure platform that allows for instant transactions and scalable smart contracts. It provides an Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution to assist developers build on the blockchain.
Earlier this month, the Ethereum scaling startup closed a $150 million Series B funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Paradigm. The round valued the company at $1.65 billion.
Fireblocks (Israel)
Founder/s: Idan Ofrat, Michael Shaulov, Pavel Berengoltz
Founded year: 2018
Funding: $1B
Israeli cryptocurrency platform Fireblocks has developed a cryptocurrency platform designed for banks and financial institutions. The crypto custody platform is touted to be the most successful and least-known company in the blockchain space. It develops secure infrastructures to store and transfer cryptocurrencies and assets for payment companies, crypto exchanges, banks, non-bank credit companies, hedge funds, and other financial institutions.
Earlier this year, Fireblocks has picked up a Series E funding of $550 million co-led by hedge fund D1 Capital Partners and Spark Capital alongside other participants. What’s more, this round values Fireblocks at $8 billion.
Polygon (India)
Founder/s: Anurag Arjun, Jaynti Kanani, Mihailo Bjelic, Sandeep Nailwal
Founded year: 2017
Total funding: $450M
Headquartered in India, Polygon is a platform for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development and web3. It is among a handful of other Layer-2 or sidechain firms that are attempting to help Ethereum’s network employ techniques to move a wide range of transaction information off the blockchain.
Last month, Polygon raised $450 million in a new venture financing round led by Sequoia Capital India, Tiger Global and SoftBank alongside a slew of other investors.
Sygnum (Switzerland)
Founder/s: Gerald Goh, Luka Muller, Mathias Imbach, Manuel Krieger
Founded year: 2017
Total funding: $100M
Zurich-based Sygnum is the world’s first digital asset bank and a digital asset specialist with a global reach. It harnesses the power of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to systematically and holistically embed digital assets into regulated banking.
Earlier this year, the digital asset technology group with a Swiss banking license and a Singapore asset management license, raised $90 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding round. The investment round was led by Sun Hung Kai & Co. Limited along with participation from existing investors.
