Funding Weekly Report | 15 public funding events, Based completes $11.5 million Series A funding, led by Pantera Capital

Highlights of the Period

According to incomplete statistics from PANews, last week (2.23-3.1), there were 15 blockchain investment and financing events worldwide, with a total funding amount exceeding $129 million. Overview as follows:

• DeFi announced 2 investment and financing events, including Based, built on Hyperliquid infrastructure, completing a $11.5 million Series A funding, led by Pantera Capital;
• Web3 + AI track announced 3 investment and financing events, including t54 Labs completing $5 million seed round, with participation from Ripple and others;
• Infrastructure & Tools announced 4 investment and financing events, including the International Finance Corporation (IFC) under the World Bank investing $40 million in digital infrastructure Zetrix AI;
• Prediction Markets track announced 3 investment and financing events, including prediction market protocol TBD completing $3 million seed round, co-led by CMT Digital and ParaFi;
• Centralized Finance announced 2 investment and financing events, including crypto trading platform STS Digital raising $30 million, led by CMT Digital.

DeFi

Based completes $11.5 million Series A funding, led by Pantera Capital

Based, a Web trading and payment app built on Hyperliquid infrastructure, announced the completion of $11.5 million Series A funding, led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, and Karatage. Based reports over 100,000 registered users, 30,000 monthly active users, a total trading volume of approximately $40 billion, and nearly $14 million in revenue. The company plans to expand AI-driven “agentic commerce” and enter the North American market. The funding round was initiated in Q4 2025 and concluded last week, structured as equity investment plus token warrants.

Nasdaq-listed Solana treasury company DeFi Development strategic investment in stablecoin protocol Apyx

Nasdaq-listed Solana treasury company DeFi Development announced a strategic investment in stablecoin protocol Apyx, with undisclosed investment amount, aiming to establish an early foothold in the emerging dividend-backed stablecoin (DBS) category. Apyx’s model converts dividend streams into on-chain yields, providing a scarce yield opportunity in the over $300 billion stablecoin market, aligning with the trend of digital asset treasury companies accumulating digital assets through preferred stock.

AI

t54 Labs completes $5 million seed round, with Ripple, Franklin D. D. participating

Located in San Francisco, AI agent trust infrastructure startup t54 Labs completed $5 million seed funding, led by Anagram, PL Capital, and Franklin Templeton, with participation from Ripple, Virtuals Ventures, Blockchain Coinvestors, ABCDE, and others. Founded in January 2025, t54 Labs focuses on providing identity verification (“Know Your Agent”), real-time risk control, credit limits, and settlement tools for autonomous AI agents capable of initiating payments and trades. Blockchain is used as a programmable, auditable settlement and accountability layer, deployed on networks like XRP Ledger, Solana, and Base. The company is also developing an open-source trust layer for Coinbase’s x402 payment protocol and recently integrated with Ripple-supported digital asset treasury Evernorth.

Finrob, an AI-native research platform for finance and crypto markets, completes $3.9 million seed round

Finrob, an AI-native research platform targeting financial and crypto markets, announced $3.9 million seed funding from Maven 11, Placeholder VC, Node Capital, Archetype, Dispersion Capital, and Fabric Ventures.

Finrob offers professional AI agents powered by Claude, GPT-5.2, and Gemini 3.1, supporting real-time on-chain analysis and market intelligence queries. The platform integrates data sources like Glassnode, CoinGecko, and DefiLlama, enabling users to access complex data via conversational interface. It uses a pay-per-use model based on the x402 protocol and settles in USDC, aiming to lower the cost barrier for institutional research.

PlutonAI completes $2.7 million seed and private placement funding, led by kitchenvc

DeFAI (Decentralized Artificial Intelligence Finance) project PlutonAI, focused on Telegram, completed $2.7 million in seed and private placement funding, led by kitchenvc and supported by HyperGPT. Funds will be used for core platform development, ecosystem and agent expansion, and building scalable, production-ready AI infrastructure. The goal is to create an entry point for DeFAI driven by intelligent agents, promoting real on-chain applications and value creation.

OpenAI announces $110 billion investment at a $730 billion valuation

OpenAI announced a record $110 billion financing round at a $730 billion valuation. Amazon stated it invested $50 billion. OpenAI said SoftBank Group and NVIDIA each invested $30 billion.

(This financing event is not included in this week’s statistics.)

Infrastructure & Tools

World Bank’s IFC invests $40 million in Zetrix AI digital infrastructure

Malaysian digital infrastructure provider Zetrix AI Bhd. received approximately $40 million equity investment from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to expand digital infrastructure in Malaysia, Southeast Asia, and other emerging markets. The two will collaborate through a subsidiary planning to go public on Nasdaq, supporting projects like national digital ID systems and blockchain service networks in Malaysia. Zetrix’s Managing Director TS Wong stated that its AI business unit, AI Foundation Lab, aims to complete Nasdaq listing by the end of 2026.

AurumX ecosystem infrastructure manadia completes $7 million seed funding

Web3 verifiable data and AI collaborative infrastructure project manadia announced completion of $7 million seed funding, with investors including OKX Ventures, Pillar VC, One Way Ventures, Quasar Holding Co., and Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal.

The project, incubated by AurumX investment firm AUR Labs and top global institutions, focuses on low-trust data settlement and AI collaboration infrastructure, providing core capabilities like VERITAS verifiable oracles, AI agent collaboration, privacy-preserving settlement, and compliant payments, supporting secure, trusted value exchange and cross-system cooperation in finance, digital assets, and AI ecosystems.

Bluprynt completes $4.25 million seed round, with Coinbase Ventures, Robinhood participating

Crypto disclosure firm Bluprynt raised over $4.25 million in oversubscribed seed funding, led by Valor Capital Group, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Robinhood, Selah Ventures, Quona Capital, and Nubank co-founder Edward Wible.

Founded by Georgetown professor Christopher J. Brummer, the company aims to provide simplified global compliance solutions for digital assets. Brummer compares its business to “tax software for compliance,” helping banks, asset managers, stablecoin issuers, and payment firms bring core operations on-chain within regulated frameworks. Previous investors include former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo and entrepreneur Mark Cuban.

Rhythmic, a stablecoin underlying payment infrastructure, completes $4 million seed funding, led by Dragonfly and HadickM

Aaron, a former payments and digital assets professional, announced Rhythmic’s completion of $4 million seed funding, led by Dragonfly and HadickM, with participation from Mirana, The Fintech Fund, and others. Rhythmic is building a financial infrastructure platform for consumer internet companies, embedding accounts, value storage, cards, and rewards natively into products, with stablecoins handling fund flows and settlement at the core. Users see only “balance, rewards, and spending,” without directly interacting with wallets or stablecoin concepts. The funds will be used to improve the core platform, onboard initial partners, and expand engineering and compliance teams.

Centralized Finance

Crypto trading platform STS Digital raises $30 million, led by CMT Digital

Institutional-focused crypto options trading platform STS Digital completed $30 million funding, led by CMT Digital, with participation from Kraken, Arrington Capital, and Fidelity’s investment arm. STS Digital offers options contracts on over 400 cryptocurrencies and acts as an options market maker providing liquidity to asset pools. The company has nearly 50 employees, with clients including the Uniswap Foundation, and expects revenue to double in 2024-2025. The funds will be used to expand trading volume and hire more staff.

Japanese yen stablecoin issuer JPYC completes approximately $12 million B round, led by Asteria

Japanese yen stablecoin issuer JPYC completed its Series B first tranche, raising about 1.78 billion yen (~$12 million), led by Japanese IT solutions provider Asteria, with most funds from Japanese domestic companies and funds, and participation from BitFlyer Holdings. Launched in October 2025 under Japan’s fund transfer regulation framework, JPYC is currently the only onshore yen stablecoin. It has partnered with Densan Systems, a payment infrastructure provider for about 65,000 convenience stores in Japan, exploring domestic payments, cross-border remittances, and tourism payments, and participates in Circle’s StableFX for cross-border settlement.

Prediction Markets

Prediction market protocol TBD completes $3 million seed round, led by CMT Digital and ParaFi

Solana-based prediction market protocol TBD announced $3 million seed funding, led by CMT Digital and ParaFi, with Jump Crypto participating. CMT and ParaFi will have observer seats on the board. The project previously raised $800,000 in angel funding from Solana co-founder Raj Gokal and others.

Founded by former dYdX team members, TBD is a “verification” prediction market protocol focused on authenticating human opinions. It uses World ID for identity verification to ensure voters are real humans, and prediction trading is open to all. Users can bet on survey outcomes, with voters rewarded in USDC. The platform has completed private testing and officially launched, recording over 19 million votes during testing.

Prediction market Kash completes $2 million pre-seed funding, with Coinbase Ventures and others

Social-native prediction market platform Kash announced $2 million pre-seed funding, with investors including Big Brain Holdings, Spartan Group, Coinbase Ventures, Kosmos Ventures, Halo Capital, MoonRock Capital, Polaris Fund, and Fabric VC. Kash aims to embed prediction markets directly into social media, initially supporting X. Users can interact with @kash_bot to turn daily posts into tradable markets on real-time events, monetizing opinions. It uses on-chain transparent settlement, dynamic multipliers, and leaderboards to allow users to express positions on elections, macroeconomics, sports, etc., and price the truth via market mechanisms without switching apps.

Prediction market Fireplace completes $1.5 million pre-seed funding, led by Frachtis

Prediction market trading terminal Fireplace completed $1.5 million pre-seed funding, led by Frachtis, with participation from White Star Capital and other VCs and angels. Funds will be used to build cross-platform infrastructure for institutional prediction trading, including cross-scenario aggregation, smart order routing, real-time data, institutional execution, charting tools, and tracking wallets, whales, and insiders.

Others

Tether makes strategic investment in global internet marketplace Whop

Tether announced a strategic investment (amount undisclosed) in Whop, the largest global internet marketplace with over 18.4 million users, approximately $3 billion annual revenue, and 25% monthly growth. As part of the partnership, Whop will integrate Tether’s Wallet Development Kit (WDK) to enable creators and users to pay efficiently with USD₮ and USA₮. The collaboration aims to leverage stablecoin technology to reduce friction and costs of traditional payments and support Whop’s expansion into Latin America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

According to TFN, Whop received a $200 million investment from Tether, with a valuation of $1.6 billion.

(This event is not included in this week’s statistics.)

Game:

Power Protocol, a blockchain gaming infrastructure platform, receives $3 million from Bitkraft Ventures

Power Protocol, a blockchain gaming infrastructure platform, received $3 million from Bitkraft Ventures, increasing total funding to $15.5 million. Power Protocol builds infrastructure for multiple game developers, including Pixion Games’ Fableborne, enabling scalable systems that allow game creators to adopt POWER token economics and share on-chain infrastructure instead of launching isolated chains and tokens.