Crypto funding news, such as the latest from Immutable, is still causing industry excitement. And that’s despite plunging token valuations, company insolvency rumours and “extreme fear” instilled as a permanent, bear-market fixture.

Let’s take a look at where some of the most eye-catching, screw-this-we’re-building money’s been flowing just lately…

 

Immutable boosts blockchain gaming with $500m raise

The Aussie-founded, Sydney-headquartered “layer 2” Ethereum scaling company Immutable is a no-brainer for this round-up’s lead story.

Earlier this month, on June 17, Immutable announced and launched a whopping great US$500 million venture fund focused on investing in, and helping to develop, blockchain gaming and NFT projects.

The fund, dubbed Immutable Ventures, is particularly dedicated to supporting Web3 games and NFT projects that build on the Immutable X platform (token ticker: IMX).

These projects/companies include Gamestop (GME), TikTok, Opensea, and some of the hottest NFT gaming titles in various stages of development, such as Illuvium, Gods Unchained, Guild of Guardians and Ember Sword.

Immutable also revealed that the fund will collaborate with crypto and gaming investors including Animoca Brands, BITKRAFT, Arrington Capital, Double Peak, Airtree, King River Capital and, as mentioned, GameStop.

And the fund has already reportedly invested in Web3 companies and NFT startups including Starkware, Stardust, PlanetQuest and Topology.

Immutable is apparently the fastest Aussie company to reach unicorn status. In March, the firm raised US$200 million in a Series C round led by Singapore’s state investment titan Temasek at a US$2.5 billion valuation. And in February meme-stock Reddit favourite GameStop partnered with Immutable X for the launch of its NFT marketplace.

“Gaming is bigger than movies and music combined, and is compounding by 10% every year,” said Immutable president and co-founder Robbie Ferguson recently.

“With the knowledge we have from building two of the blockchain’s biggest games in-house, we’re going to be providing the funding, expertise and infrastructure needed to grow this to a trillion dollar ownable economy over the next decade,” he added.

 

More announcements: Unizen; FalconX, Kaiko, Cryptoys

• Unizen, a Liechtenstein-based centralised-decentralised (CeDeFi) crypto exchange, has secured a US$200 million investment this week from private equity group Global Emerging Markets (GEM).

The “capital commitment” funding (some upfront, some released later) will reportedly be used to expand the exchange’s business and ecosystem.

Built on the BNB chain, Unizen is a platform that aims to combine the best of centralised exchange and DeFi exchange trading, finding and aggregating the most cost-efficient trades across the likes of Binance and Uniswap and others.

Addressing scalability issues that exist in DeFi, while offering a high level of liquidity – that appears to be the goal.

• FalconX, a New York-based digital assets prime brokerage firm, last week raised US$150 million in a Series D funding round, which more than doubles the platform’s valuation at about US$8 billion.

The raise was led by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and B Capital, with additional contributions coming from Thoma Bravo, Wellington Management, Adams Street Partners and Tiger Global Management.

The firm’s chief exec Raghu Yarlagadda told Reuters, that, despite the slump in the crypto market and despite multiple crypto enterprises (such as Coinbase, for example) cutting staff, FalconX “continues to hire across the company”.

• Kaiko, a French-based crypto-market data provider, has today announced a US$53 million Series B funding round today, led by Eight Roads, with participation from Revaia and existing investors Alven, Point9, Anthemis, and Underscore.

The firm intends to use the funds to strengthen its institutional data products and infrastructure, and to expand its global presence.

 

• Cryptoys, an NFT/digital toy startup, has raised US$23 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Dapper Labs and the multinational toy-manufacturing giant Mattel.

Cryptoys is the flagship product of Miami-based NFT company OnChain Studios, which will reportedly use the raise to further develop its “Cryptoyverse” platform, built on top of the Flow blockchain.

The plan is to engage a whole new toy-buying customer base “of all ages” with NFTs and play-and-earn interactivity.

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