Top funding rounds H1 2021

In the “Decentralized Finance: Re-engineering the global financial infrastructure for the digital-age” report, we look at the building blocks of DeFi that redefines how individuals interact with money and exchange value. We focus on trading and asset management activities in DeFi and introduce new concepts including automated market makers (AMM), yield farming, stablecoins, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized governance. We take deep dives on: SushiSwap, Polygon and Tether. We also explore various blockchain networks that aim to make the current Ehtereum-dominated DeFi ecosystem more efficient. We look at the regulatory atmosphere and progress across different jurisdictions and present a “sensible” token classification, developed by Global Blockchain Convergence, which helps the crypto industry shape a clearer regulatory vision.

We will be releasing the report in three different parts. Part 1 will be released next week. 

So stay tuned!

Below, we give you a sneak peek of the upcoming report.

Top Funding Rounds H1 2021

Tracking where the VC investor money ends up is an easy way to scan the market trends and find out the global leaders’ long-term bets. In the first half of 2021, there has been more than $7.3 billion of investor dollars piled into companies working on blockchain innovation. This is three times higher than the amount raised in 2020.

Source: Data source Crunchbase, Graphic source Novum Insights

A week into the second half of the year, saw two crypto companies that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in the first half of 2021 announce their intention to go public - Circle and Bullish. 

Circle, the company behind one of the fastest growing stablecoins USDC, raised a whopping $440 million. USDC has a supply of more than $25 billion and the supply has grown by more than 500% since the beginning of 2021. Circle plans to go public on the New York Stock Exchange via a SPAC. Coinbase, the other backer of USDC, went public on NASDAQ in April. If you want to learn more about how different stablecoins performed so far this year, check out our blog post from last week here. 

Bullish Global, a subsidiary of Block.one (developer of EOS), raised $300 million to roll out a crypto exchange. Bullish announced that the company plans to go public, also via a SPAC, at a $9 billion valuation. However, there have been a lot of controversies around the plan. The exchange hasn’t launched yet!

Paxos, the company behind the stablecoin PAX, raised $300 million from Oak HC/FT, PayPal Ventures and more. Crypto exchange and wallet blockchain.com raised $420 million over two rounds in 2021. The leading crypto hard wallet provider Ledger raised a $380 million Series C round from 10T Holdings, Digital Currency Group, Draper Associates, Global Founders Capital and others.

We see a great deal of capital flowing into the DeFi space, too. Solana, a blockchain network focused on building Dapps (decentralized applications), raised $314 million. The creator of CryptoKitties, NBA Top Shot and the Flow blockchain Dapper Labs raised $305 million valuing the company at $2.6 billion. Dapper Labs is raising more money at over $7.5 billion valuation.

Figure, a loan company leveraging blockchain technology, raised $301 million over three rounds in 2021. NYDIG, a digital asset subsidiary of a $10 billion alternative asset manager Stone Ridge, raised $300 million from Morgan Stanley, New York Life Insurance, Soros Fund Management, MassMutual and more. Chainalysis, a blockchain data and analytics company raised $200 million over two rounds. 

Looking at investment trends in the first half of 2021, we see a rising interest in the DeFi space. $740 million has flown into the stablecoin space, the main pillar of DeFi trading. Solana’s and Dapper Lab’s funding rounds confirm that the future is multichain. 

All eyes are on redesigning the global financial infrastructure using blockchain technology.