📬 Inbox Dump #40

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 may have slipped through the cracks, or they came late and we haven’t had a chance to cover.

At The Defiant we cover the most important DeFi-related news and developments but we 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!

✉️ ATMOSPHERE CONTINUES INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION WITH LONDON OFFICE OPENING

AUSTIN, TX – February 24, 2022 – Atmosphere (www.atmosphere.tv), the worldwide leader in streaming TV entertainment for businesses, today announced its entry into the United Kingdom with the opening of a London office, its first outside of the United States.

✉️ AllianceBlock and peaq Partner to Power Web3’s Economy of Things Through DeFi

24 February 2022 –peaq, the decentralized Web3 network powering the Economy of Things (EoT), and AllianceBlock, an end-to-end decentralized finance solutions provider, have announced a partnership centering on their acceleration into Web3. The partnership will see peaq utilize AllianceBlock’s end-to-end decentralized infrastructure in order to enhance the capabilities of the network's economic mechanisms, accelerating the creation of the Web3 machine economy.

✉️ Boohoo partners with Paris Hilton’s Virtual Fashion Week in Metaverse Debut

Global fashion retailer boohoo is teaming up with entrepreneur, CEO and former boohoo ambassador, Paris Hilton, for Paris Hilton’s virtual Fashion Week to be held in Paris World. Boohoo worked with MilkMoney, the leading marketplace for out-of-home (OOH) media buying, to secure the billboard inventory in the Metaverse.

✉️ Newly launched NFT Inc. helps sculptor transform works into NFT art

Contemporary artist Ben Pearce has constructed a series of origami-style animals from colourfully painted sheet steel, titled #PaperPalsAotearoa. The sculptures stand 2 metres tall on plinths of the same size outside Te Papa Tongarewa. The Wellington Sculpture Trust commissioned Pearce’s project as part of their biannual 4 Plinths Sculpture Award, backed by the Collin Post Trust.

✉️ The Breakfast Club & OneOf Team Up For An Exclusive NFT Collection

On Tuesday, February 22, iHeart's groundbreaking, nationally syndicated morning show and OneOf, a Green Web3 Company for music and sports, announce the release of a new NFT collection based on The Breakfast Club and its legendary hosts DJ Envy, Angela Yee and Charlamagne Tha God. The collection will include six drops of digital NFT collectibles, and the first drop is expected to showcase the work of well-known illustrator and visual artist Justin Richburg.

✉️ A Fashion Industries First : NFT Sold in £ not Crypto on a Luxury Website for ROKSANDA, in Partnership with Clearpay during London Fashion Week

Institute of Digital Fashion announce their 6th World’s First: an NFT launch at LFW that’s shoppable on a luxury brands website. Strategising, creating assets, minting and implementing on site. Collaborating with the London based luxury brand, ROKSANDA - launched during London Fashion Week in partnership with Clearpay.

✉️ Marinade Finance on Solana reveals DAO governance through locked NFTs (MNDE)

Marinade is one of the top projects on Solana by TVL and has the most widely used liquid staking token (mSOL) of SOL. Recently shared the 2022 roadmap which includes an exciting update to the MNDE token and DAO governance. MNDE token holders can lock their tokens and receive an NFT in return with their underlying locked MNDE. This NFT will allow them to participate in DAO governance.

Funding

💰 DeFiHelper Secures $500,000 In Its Pre-Seed Investment Round

DeFiHelper, an investment tool that helps investors of any scale to easily manage and automate their DeFi investments across 300+ protocols, closed its $500,000 Pre-Seed funding round — just two months after its public launch. The round was led by Big Brain Holdings with other participants including 6K Starter, CryptoOMG Capital, a major Russian VC fund and a number of business angels.

💰 Canza Finance Raises $3.27M Seed Round to Empower Underserved Sub-Saharan Africa SMEs with Financial Services

Lagos, Nigeria, 22 February 2022 —Canza Finance, an emerging markets neobank that is building the world’s largest non-institutional-based financial system, announced the completion of its $3.27M seed round. The fundraising round was led by Fenbushi Capital, with participation from Dominance Ventures, Bixin Ventures, Consensys, Protocol Labs, Emergo Ventures, MEXC Global, NGC Ventures, XanPool, Hashkey, the founders of Celo, and others. This funding enables Canza to continue headcount growth and expand its service offering in Nigeria and other growth regions including South America and Asia.

💰 Aligned Raises $34M To Grow DeFi and Web3 Infrastructure

Aligned, a DeFi and Web3 infrastructure company, has secured $34 million in funding, the company announced on Thursday. Investors include GSR, Altium Capital and Cavalry Fund, as well as individual investors like film producer Happy Walters. This is the firm’s first funding round, founder Sam Cassatt told Blockworks.

💰 Solana-Based Defi Margin Trading Protocol Raises $3 Million in Seed Funding

Mrgn Labs has revealed the company has raised $3 million from investors in order to bolster defi margin trading, according to a press release announcement on Wednesday. Mrgn Labs is the team behind the defi margin protocol called Marginfi, a protocol that allows traders to access margin in a decentralized fashion. Mrgn Labs disclosed that the funding round was co-led by Multicoin Capital and Pantera Capital. Furthermore, Solana Ventures and Sino Global Capital participated in the fundraising as well.

💰 Zip co-founder Larry Diamond backs DeFi startup tiiik in $5.2 million seed round

Australian DeFi startup Tiiik has raised $5.2 million in a Seed round backed by some leading fintech founders, including Zip’s Larry Diamond. The raise was co-led by Global Founders Capital and FinTech Collective, supported by DACM, B Digital, Decision Tree Capital, Investible, LedgerPrime, Ox Ventures, Athena Ventures, Double Peak, Valhalla Capital, Parsiq, Gate.io, NxGen and Waterdrip Capital.

💰 Polkadot-based DeFi protocol Parallel Finance raises $21 million in Series A funding

Polychain Capital led the round, with Lightspeed Venture Partners, Slow Ventures, Alameda Research, Blockchain Capital, CMT Digital, Blockchange Ventures, and others also participating. This was an equity round and values the project at $150 million, Parallel Finance founder Yubo Ruan told The Block. In June, the project raised $2 million, bringing its total funding to date to $23 million.

💰 Teller Raises $6.85M in Funding

Teller, a San Francisco, CA-based DeFi protocol that enables unsecured digital asset lending and borrowing, received a $6.85m strategic funding round. The round was led by Blockchain Capital with participation from Franklin Templeton, Toyota Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Upstart, Signum Capital, alongside angel investors from Paypal, Fundera, and Bison Trails.

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