📬 Inbox Dump #19

Hello Defiers! Welcome to Inbox Dump where we include the updates and announcements that flood our DMs each week and didn’t make it to The Defiant’s content platforms. Sometimes announcements here didn’t meet the bar to become a news story, sometimes they ...

At The Defiant we cover the most important DeFi-related news and developments but I know many of you are hunting for projects before they are fully developed and before they are newsworthy. Our goal with this installment of the newsletter is to help you find them. Look at this as the starting point to DYOR.

We also include a compilation of DeFi and crypto funding rounds in the past week so you have these in one handy place.

Keep in mind these have been unedited. With that —here we go!

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Inbox Dump!

✉️ MEXC Partners with Unicrypt Expanding its Ecosystem Development

Global cryptocurrency and digital asset exchange MEXC is partnering with Unicrypt to help develop its ecosystem and provide MEXC customers with access to Unicrypt’s unique defi services and protocols. Built from the ground up by a passionate and dedicated team, inspired by Uniswap founder Hayden Adams, Unicrypt is designed to give its users access to a decentralized suite of tools and services to help them benefit from the booming defi ecosystem.

✉️ Pope Francis’ Exclusive Artwork to Scholas Occurrentes Foundation Makes NFT Debut on AkoinNFT Following Charity Collaboration

The global charity of His Holiness Pope Francis, Scholas Occurrentes, has in cooperation with PVBLIC Foundation, through their joint donor-advised fund; Transforming Education Donor Fund and AkoinNFT, unveiled a limited edition NFT drop, featuring art created solely by Pope Francis and in collaboration with other artists, where proceeds will benefit the work of Scholas.

✉️ FAMED STREET ARTIST, OKUDA SAN MIGUEL, ANNOUNCES CARBON-NEUTRAL NFT COLLECTION

MADRID, SPAIN, July 26, 2021 - Internationally renowned street artist, Okuda San Miguel, is dropping his first-ever NFT collection on Nifty Gateway on August 2, 2021. Known for his vibrant, large scale artworks, which include murals, sculptures, and immersive installations, the Madrid based artist is now making his first foray into digital art, with a collection of five carbon-neutral NFTs.

✉️ Aerial Launches Carbon Offset Tool for Cryptocurrency

SAN FRANCISCO, July 20, 2021 - Aerial, the sustainable living platform, has just launched a tool for offsetting the carbon emissions of cryptocurrency. With Aerial’s crypto offset tool, users can sign-in with their Coinbase to see an estimate of their Bitcoin and / or Ethereum collections’ carbon emissions, and then offset those emissions by making a contribution to verified carbon removal projects, using either a credit card or cryptocurrency.

✉️ The Graph to use Polygon for its billing system

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 29, 2021 /-Polygon proof-of-stake (PoS) is an Ethereum scaling solution whose ecosystem attracts the brightest developers from all over the world. Its focus on solving scalability and fostering new ideas and concepts has attracted the most promising talent. The Graph, the decentralized indexing and querying protocol for the decentralized web (Web3) that queries networks including Ethereum, IPFS, Celo, and Avalanche expands its presence by using Polygon network for its billing technology, Subgraph Studio.

✉️ Gelato Network Brings Automated Liquidity Management to Zerion’s 200,000+ Monthly Users

Gelato Announces Live G-UNI Pools On Zerion As DeFi Continues Surge

[SAN FRANCISCO] -- Zerion, a leading investing interface for decentralized finance (DeFi), today announced its integration of the Gelato Network, a protocol that automates smart contract executions on networks like Ethereum. G-UNI, an automated liquidity provision ERC-20 framework for Uniswap v3 , will allow Zerion’s 200,000+ monthly active users to have their Uniswap v3 positions managed automatically to maximize their returns. With this integration, Zerion has become the go-to DeFi aggregator to natively offer fungible Uniswap v3 LP positions at a massive scale.

✉️ C.R.E.A.M. Finance Launches Boosted Savings on Binance Smart Chain to automatically increase yield for BNB lenders

Taipei - Thurs 29 July 2021, 10:00am ET — Decentralized lending protocol, C.R.E.A.M. Finance, today launched Boosted Savings, the first money market DeFi protocol to automatically share validator rewards with users, beginning with BNB deposits on Binance Smart Chain (BSC).

"Increasing capital efficiency and making DeFi easier and more accessible to users is at the heart of C.R.E.A.M. Finance. By automating access to delegation services on Binance Smart Chain, we are putting typically underutilized assets to work by creating new revenue streams and generating additional credit opportunities in a way that's easy for our users,” said Leo Cheng, Co-Founder and Project Lead at C.R.E.A.M. Finance

✉️ Celo-Powered Valora Closes Series A Funding, Becomes a Standalone Company as Crypto Mobile App Gains Traction

Valora raises more than $20 million in capital led by Andreessen Horowitz to fuel growth

SAN FRANCISCO, July 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Celo, an open-source blockchain ecosystem focused on making decentralized financial (DeFi) systems and tools accessible to anyone with a smartphone, today announced that Valora, a mobile-first digital wallet native to the Celo Platform, which allows you to save, send, and spend crypto as easily as sending a text, will operate as an independent company. The news comes amidst the close of a $20 million Series A round from world-class investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, SV Angel, Nima Capital, NFX, and Valor Capital, among others. Jackie Bona, who most recently served as Head of Consumer Growth of cLabs, Inc. (cLabs), will assume the role as Chief Executive Officer of Valora as a standalone entity.

✉️ Crypto Broker Floating Point Group Partners with Blockchain Analytics Provider TRM Labs

Hoboken, New Jersey-based Floating Point Group (FPG) has integrated with TRM Labs' blockchain analytics platform to enable compliant trading across centralized and decentralized liquidity pools.

FPG's integration with TRM's platform amplifies its efforts to monitor on-chain transactions and apply real-time risk management at the speed required by sophisticated traders. TRM's API provides risk scoring on addresses and transactions based on a customizable set of indicators, including FATF's money laundering predicate offenses. Alerts are catalogued within a case management feature, fostering a streamlined and auditable process for FPG's compliance team as the organization continues to scale.

✉️ Internet Computer Decentralized Applications Have Nearly 250k Users Just 10 Weeks Since Launch

Internet Computer is the fastest public blockchain to 500 developers
8% of the 500 developers building have received grants
Decentralized versions of Reddit, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Medium, Dropbox, Trello, as well as DeFi are already up and running with users on the Internet Computer

Zurich, Switzerland, July 28th, 2021 — Today, the DFINITY Foundation reveals that there are nearly 250k users of dapps, open internet services, DeFi, pan-industry platforms, and websites built on the Internet Computer. This is only 10 weeks since the “Genesis” launch of the blockchain network on May 7, 2021.

✉️ BlockQuake™ Exchange Launches Globally

The regulatory-driven digital asset exchange aims to be the industry gold standard in security and global regulatory compliance.

New York, NY— BlockQuake™ today announced the official launch of its regulatory-driven digital asset exchange. The BlockQuake™ Exchange, which is now accessible worldwide, aims to set the industry gold standard in global regulatory compliance and security for digital asset trading platforms. Created by a team with over 100 years of collective experience in blue-chip financial services, the BlockQuake™ Exchange sets itself apart by aiming to give users the security, transparency, and a variety of order options existing in trading in traditional financial markets.

Funding

💰 Fabric Ventures announces a new $130 million fund for 2021 to invest in digital assets and decentralisation

LONDON, July 29th 2021 - Fabric Ventures, a venture manager that backs ‘open economy’ founders across the globe, today announces Europe’s biggest fund of its type, valued at $130 million, which includes $30 million from the European Investment Fund (EIF). Other notable limited partners in the new fund include Niklas Zennstrom’s venture firm Atomico, Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital, Barry Silbert’s DCG, German multi-family office Lennertz & Co., Blockchain Coinvestors and Hutt Capital.

💰 FIGURE COMPLETES $200 MILLION SERIES D

SAN FRANCISCO – July 28, 2021 –Figure Technologies, Inc. (Figure™), a leader in transforming financial services through the power of blockchain technology, officially closed its Series D fundraise of $200 million at a $3.2 billion valuation, welcoming new investors including entities and funds managed and/or advised by affiliates of Apollo Global Management, Inc., Blockchain.com, Rockaway Blockchain, HOF Capital, Endeavour Capital, National Bank Holdings, Goldentree Asset Management and L1 Digital.

💰 Ex-Poker Pros Raise $130M Fund for DeFi Bets

Ascensive Assets, an investment firm led by former professional poker players, has raised a $130 million fund that will focus on the decentralized finance (DeFi) market. The latest fund dwarfs Ascensive’s maiden $24 million fundraise back in 2019, which backed the likes of Polkaswap, Benqi, Yield Guild Games and JennyDAO.

💰 $3.3 million raised for Ethereum options protocol built on Optimism and Synthetix

Lyra, a DeFi platform focused on options trading and built on the Ethereum layer 2 protocol Optimism, has raised $3.3 million in seed funding. The funding round was led by venture capital firms Framework Ventures and ParaFi Capital, according to a Monday announcement. Apollo Capital, the DeFi Alliance, Divergence, Orthogonal and Robot Ventures also participated in the seed round.

💰 Celo-Powered Valora Closes Series A Funding, Becomes a Standalone Company as Crypto Mobile App Gains Traction

💰 DeFi Lending Platform Vee.Finance Closes Multi-Million Dollar Seed Round, Led by Huobi Ventures Blockchain Fund and Avalanche Asia Eco Fund AVATAR

Vee.Finance announced the completion of a multi-million-dollar seed round led by the Huobi Ventures Blockchain Fund and Avalanche Asia Eco Fund AVATAR, as well as other major public blockchain funds participating as well. In particular, Eduardo Tobon, the former president of Diners Club, has also participated in this seed round as an individual investor. According to Vee.Finance, this round of funding is mainly used to expand the team and increase the capacity of the platform to scale up the business.

💰 DeFi Player Paystand Raises $50M To Digitize B2B Payments

Paystand, a payments company for businesses that works to reduce transaction costs by relying on blockchain technology, has raised $50 million in a Series C funding round, according to a press release. The funding nearly doubles Paystand’s capital raised, the release stated. The round was led by NewView Capital. NewView’s Jazmin Medina is set to join Paystand’s board of directors as a result of the investment.

💰 Lolli Closes $10M In Series A Funding Round

The leading bitcoin rewards company, Lolli, today announced the close of a $10 million Series A financing round led by early Chime backer,Acrew Capital. Acrew is joined byBanana Capital, Up North Management, andAnimal Capital, the Gen. Z-focused venture capital fund founded by social media stars Josh Richards, Griffin Johnson, and Noah Beck. The funding round includes investments from influencers and entrepreneurs such as Logan Paul, Chantel Jeffries, Lauren Riihimaki of LaurDIY, Kenny Beecham, and Baron Davis.

💰 NAOS Finance raises $5.1M in private sale to accelerate development of its revolutionary DeFi application

NAOS Finance, one of the most exciting DeFi projects in 2021, recently announced that they successfully closed a private funding round, through which they raised $5.1 M from strategic investors. This success is an indication of investor confidence in the project as only a few projects have managed to raise such a huge amount.

💰 Decentralized Prediction Markets Platform Hedgehog Markets Raises $3.5M in Seed Funding

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hedgehog Markets, a decentralized prediction markets platform built on the Solana blockchain, announced the close of its $3.5M seed funding round today. Investors include prominent venture and digital asset firms Reciprocal Ventures, Republic Labs, Alameda Research, Divergence Ventures, MGNR, and Manna. Hedgehog also received a grant from the Solana Foundation.

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