İlker Selim Zorluoğlu’s Post

Yesterday’s Crypto Startup Spotlight Night was such a blast ! 🔥 Congratulation to all the founders for the amazing pitch on the stage: 1- ⚡Kevin SEROU | DEFIT : Play sports, have fun, earn rewards. DEFIT innovates sports gamification and rewarding in the sports industry. 💙⚡ 2- Ferdinand Attivi | Subs : From managing subscriptions to automated investing, peer-to-peer payments, and more, Subs Protocol is revolutionizing how we handle recurring payments on the blockchain. 💰 3- Jonathan Behar | Icon.X World: An ecosystem where Racers, Sponsors, & Teams thrive through a Compete-to-Earn model. 🏎️ 4- Gaia Ferrero Regis | Byzantine Finance: Byzantine is a secure, white-labelled restocking infrastructure, with which you can offer restaking to your users or create custom structured products in days, not months. 📈 5- Julien Marcadé | Mintera: As a DEPIN project, Mintera offers stable and secure yields in USDT, fully generated by their green mining farm located in France. 🪙 6- Danny Ba | Inflow: Inflow aims to be the next-generation payment service provider, offering low fees and a frictionless, Web2-comparable flow without KYC for customers. 💳 A heartfelt thank you to the KRYPTOSPHERE® Accelerator and La Place Fintech | DeFi teams for your impeccable co-organization. 🙏 We are grateful for the presence and valuable feedback from the jury committee members: Bilal EL ALAMY, Alban Vendeuvre, and Ivan de Lastours. 🎙️ Finally, we also want to express our appreciation to all attendees for your participation and support. The event couldn't have been a success without you all ! #web3 #blockchain #startups #startuppitch #events Houda Leroy Peiyao Qiu Raphaël Pautard Guillaume Capoen Jules Foa

Last week, Andreessen Horowitz's (a16z crypto) first overseas crypto startup accelerator demo day in London highlighted the firm's strong commitment to tapping into the UK and European talent pool. Amidst the glitz of a venue that's hosted stars like Charli XCX, 25 innovative crypto founders presented their visions to a captivated audience of 100 investors and journalists. This event wasn't just about showcasing new startups; it was a strategic move by a16z to strengthen its foothold in the UK, signaling a bullish outlook on the region's regulatory environment for crypto. The UK's recent legislative advancements, including the introduction of crypto exchange-traded notes on the London Stock Exchange, underscore a growing receptiveness to crypto innovations. The demo day featured a diverse array of startups, from blockchain gaming to digital fashion passports, highlighting the expanding possibilities within the crypto ecosystem. Notably, the inclusion of several female founders on stage marked a progressive shift in an industry striving for greater diversity. As a16z continues to build relationships with UK policymakers and stakeholders, it's clear that they are betting big on the UK's potential to be a leader in the crypto space. For those of us at Semoto, watching these developments unfold is incredibly exciting, as it aligns with our mission to simplify the process of connecting businesses with top-tier blockchain and crypto experts. The future of crypto in the UK looks promising, and at Semoto, we are eager to support this growth by providing a platform where innovation meets expertise. Explore how we can help at semoto.io #CryptoInnovation #Blockchain

🚀 Exciting News Alert!! 🚀 ❤️ I am thrilled to announce that I have joined the incredible team at Mocha Ventures as a General Partner for their new Web3 tokenised fund. 🌐 At Mocha Ventures, we're taking a leap into the future with our innovative approach to investing in the blockchain and digital asset space. We firmly believe in empowering innovative entrepreneurs who are trying to unlock the full potential of blockchain technology. We invest in the future of intelligent protocols, to not only make legacy industries more efficient and effective, but to fundamentally change the very fabric of the internet itself. Our mission is to promote the innovation of intelligent protocols, expand access to the digital asset ecosystem, serve as a trusted partner to the digital community & deliver remarkable returns to our investors.  🚀🌟 🌟 What Makes Mocha Ventures Stand Out? 🌐 Web3 Focus: We are pioneers in the Web3 space, exploring blockchain technology and its applications in decentralised finance (DeFi), NFTs, and beyond. 📣 EU Regulated: We are an EU regulated digital assets fund, based in Liechtenstein, authorised to invest in tokens and various digital assets. 💰 Tokenised Fund: Our revolutionary approach involves a tokenised fund structure, making it easier than ever for family offices and investors to participate and invest in the future of finance. 👥 Family Offices: We are proud to collaborate with renowned family offices, creating a powerhouse of expertise and resources to drive innovation. Stay tuned for updates, insights, and exciting developments as we continue to navigate this disruptive ecosystem. If you're as passionate about Web3 as we are, let's connect! Reach out, and let's explore the endless possibilities of this dynamic industry together. 🌐🤝 Thank you to everyone who has been part of my journey so far, and I look forward to the incredible opportunities that lie ahead with Mocha Ventures! 🚀✨ www.mochaventures.com #MochaVentures #web3 #blockchain #tokenisation #digitalassets #investment #familyoffices #innovation #futureoffinance

The amount that was invested in #Web3 and #crypto companies this week was $54.4M. Here are the details 👇 FORDEFI, a #cryptocurrency wallet company, received $10M from Alchemy, Paxos, and Electric Capital. Watches , luxury watch #trading platform, received $1.9M in pre-seed funding round. The round was led by Lemniscap, with participation from Builder Capital, Soft Holdings, Darkside Capital, Big Brain Holdings, Marin Ventures, and several angel investors. #Architect, an emerging leader in derivatives brokerage services and #trading technology, received $12M in funding. The round was co-led by BlockTower Capital and Tioga Capital Partners, and attracted new investors including CMT Digital, ParaFi Capital, A Capital, and Twelve Below. #Ultiverse, a long-term portfolio company of Morningstar Ventures , received $4M in a strategic funding round. The project's investors include GSR, Animoca Brands, DeFiance Capital, Sequoia, IDG Capital, and others. Drosera received $1.5M in a Pre-Seed funding round by Dylan CZ, Tanthai Pongstei, CJ BaseDAO, Metamatic, Comfy Capital, Karel Kubat, Sebastien Davies, Chris Battenfield, Anagram, and others. #Witness received $3.5M seed funding led by Haun Ventures and Coinbase. #BlueprintFinance received $7.5M in funding for its #ConcreteProtocol, a native on-chain credit market that provides liquidation protection and yield optimization. The funding round was led by Hashed and Tribe Capital, with participation from several other investors. Ethena Labs, the company behind the new #USDe stablecoin and a yield-bearing version called #sUSDe, received $14M in a round that includes Dragonfly, Brevan Howard Digital, and Avon Ventures.

Crypto funding landscape is heating up with $2.4 billion invested in Q1 2024, a 40% increase from the previous quarter, according to PitchBook. 🚀 Here are the major deals making waves this week: 💥 Web3 social media platform Farcaster raised $150 million in a Series A round led by Paradigm, with participation from a16z crypto, Haun Ventures, Variant, and Standard Crypto. Farcaster has seen impressive growth since going permissionless last October, boasting 350,000 paid sign-ups and a 50x increase in network activity. 🌐 💡 EVM layer-2 Plume Network secured a $10 million seed funding round led by Haun Ventures, with Galaxy Ventures, Superscrypt, and Portal Ventures also investing. Plume is making strides in bringing real-world assets (RWAs) on-chain, with over 80 RWA and DeFi projects on its private testnet. 🏠 🛠️ Blockless, a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) project, raised $8 million in pre-seed and seed funding. 🔗 🌍 Fantom Foundation announced a $10 million strategic funding round led by Korean fund Hashed.📊 💼 New Form Capital is looking to raise a $100 million fund amid the recent crypto fundraising boom.💸 📈 With investor sentiment on the rise, the pace of investments is expected to keep climbing throughout the year. Stay tuned at Leo Ventures for more updates as the crypto funding frenzy continues to unfold!🌟 #CryptoFunding #BlockchainInnovation #Web3 #DeFi #CryptoNews

Biggest Fundraising Rounds Last 7 Days 20 - 26 Nov Last week, over $134 million was secured through 17 deals 1️⃣ Bitfarms secured $44 in funding round Bitfarms is a global Bitcoin self-mining company. 2️⃣ Blast secured $20M in funding round with participation from Paradigm & Standard Crypto Blast is an EVM-compatible, optimistic rollup Layer 2 that raises the baseline yield for users and developers without changing the experience cryptonatives expect. 3️⃣ Privy secured $18M in Series A round led by Paradigm Privy is a developer tools platform aimed at securely collecting data to improve the crypto user experience. 4️⃣ Klever secured $20M for Klever and Klever Finance in funding round led by GEM Digital Limited Klever is a p2p network for everyone and is the embodiment of our commitment to pursue the dream of creating the most user-friendly and inclusive blockchain ecosystem. 5️⃣ Matr1x fire secured $10M in Extended Series A led by SevenX Ventures & Folius Ventures Matr1x FIRE is the first mobile shooting game in Metaverse and also the first game on the Matr1x platform. 6️⃣ Panoptic secured $7M in Seed round led by Greenfield Capital Panoptic is an options trading protocol that is perpetual, oracle-free and offers instant-settlement. 7️⃣ OMTrade secured $6M in Seed round led by Find Satoshi Lab OMTrade is a crypto exchange for social trading that realigning the interests of traders and followers via innovative product features like same-batch transactions, monthly high watermark settlement, and market-oriented profit sharing structure. 8️⃣ Saga secured $5M in Extended Seed led by Placeholder Saga is a protocol aimed at helping crypto game developers launch their own blockchains, 9️⃣ @IntentX secured $2.5M in Seed round led by Magnus Capital IntentX is an intent-based, decentralized derivatives exchange offering perpetual futures trading.

Biggest Fundraising Rounds Last Week 💰 Last week, over $200M was secured through 36 deals 1/ IoTeX secured $50.0M in funding round IoTeX is an EVM-compatible L1 blockchain that provides secure interactions between humans and machines. 2/ Burnt (XION) secured $25.0M in Series A XION is a modular Generalized Abstraction layer purpose-built for consumer adoption, developed by Burnt. 3/ Ellipsis Labs secured $20.0M in Series A led by Paradigm Ellipsis Labs, in the process of expanding to accelerate the development of DeFi, is building Phoenix, a decentralized limit order book on Solana blockchain. 4/ Agora secured $12.0M in Seed led by Dragonfly Agora is a stablecoin issuer that provides users a haven from volatility by pegging themselves to other assets such as the dollar 5/ GOMBLE Games secured $10.0M in funding round GOMBLE, the crypto arm of 111%, is a well-established game studio that specializes in casual game genre 6/ Zeus Network secured $8.0M in funding round led by Mechanism Capital Zeus Network serves as a crucial permissionless layer, harnessing the formidable strengths of both Solana and Bitcoin. 7/ DeepLink Global secured $8.0M in funding round DeepLink is a Web3 Cloud Gaming Platform with a remote control tool as the entrance. 8/ Raiinmaker | Mint Your Moment secured $7.5M in Seed led by Jump Capital, Cypher Capital Group Raiinmaker is building decentralized AI tools and web3 infrastructure to undergird sports, gaming and entertainment projects. 9/ @Planet Mojo secured $5.5M in Strategic led by Animoca Brands, Merit Circle, Courtside Ventures Planet Mojo is a magical and imaginative Web3 gaming metaverse platform being built by an accomplished team of industry veterans. 10/ Gasp secured $5.0M in Private Gasp is a L2 cross-rollup protocol, with the vision to make Ethereum the settlement layer for all cross-chain transactions #Web3fundraising #Web3investing #venturecapital

One of my big takeaways as an entrepreneur at the Barclays Techstars 2016 accelerator programme (cc Chris Adelsbach Simon Taylor) was to "invite serendipity". I'm a big believer that you have to be "in it" and "doing" in order for things to happen for you. On the Eurostar on the way to Paris Blockchain Week on Monday I peeked at the screen of the traveller sitting next to me, and the word "blockchain" caught the corner of my eye... Megan Podgorski, M.S. works at The Block, a major industry publication. We exchanged details, and the following day I received an invitation from Megan to join an intimate private dinner hosted by The Block. Not knowing who was going to be there, I changed my travel plans to join the dinner. I entered the dinner room and saw legendary silicon valley venture capitalist Tim Draper, Polygon co-founder Mihailo Bjelic, "coloured coins" inventor Amos Meiri and other amazing and interesting people. I arrived early, so I even had a chance to "spar" with Tim Draper on the merits of Bitcoin vs Ethereum. That’s serendipity. Closing the loop: this year I'm proud to be a mentor at Techstars web3 (cc Hugh McGirr, Pete Townsend), and I'm advising the startups in the cohort to invite serendipity. Techstars Web3 #blockchain #blockchaintechnology #pbw Michael Amar 🎗️Donna Bengio Anna Zambon

📢Syndika Weekly Digest: Time for Updates! 📢 Welcome to another edition of Syndika's Weekly Digest, where we bring you the latest and greatest updates from our portfolio startups: IX Swap, Tea-Fi, Copernic Space, and Kima Network: IX Swap, the “ Uniswap” for Real-World Asset Tokens (RWA): ✅On June 24, Julian Kwan joined Vera Kretschmar to uncover why a successful angel investor like Vera would venture from traditional investments, and into tokenized real-world assets: https://lnkd.in/eEP5YjZU ✅With 500,000 USDT raised and more than 380 participants, IX Swap was proud to announce that its DEX pools are now live for Coach K’s GameFi Portfolio (CKGP): https://lnkd.in/etS4j8Qi ✅ The team has introduced the KYC 2.0 that simplifes the IX Swap’s KYC process into 3 automated steps: https://lnkd.in/eAdApyCW Tea-Fi, a one-stop for DeFi shop, leveraging ZK technology to enhance privacy: ✅As part of the project’s rebranding, TeaSwap was excited to announce that the change of the name to Tea-Fi, the one-stop for Defi shop. 🤩Soon, they will begin unveiling the new assets and logo one by one: https://lnkd.in/eY6mRC6N Copernic Space, the marketplace for tokenized space assets & ventures: ✅They're partnering with the LadyRocketSpace Foundation and DOGE community to take $DOGE to the Moon—literally! 2024 Moon Mission will launch the Doge Moon Fund wallet on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 in October: https://lnkd.in/en4QFgWW Kima Network, the world’s first cross-ecosystem decentralized money transfer protocol: ✅ Kima partnered with Areon Network, a decentralized blockchain built to enable scalable, user-friendly apps for everyone in Web3: https://lnkd.in/e9neWmS2 ✅On June 13, Kima’s CEO, Eitan Katz, joined the Future of Finance Digital Money’s panel in London, with Kima supporting it as a cocktail reception sponsor: https://lnkd.in/eyMv_z-f ✅Announcing the launch of zo.me on Farcaster, its Founder & CEO, Azi Mandias, joined Kima’s BizDev Manager, Atlas Arman, and other projects to discuss “AI x Web3 social https://lnkd.in/ex6vdKs3 ✅The Winners of Kima's Bronze Genesis NFTs Are Here!  🔥Check out the full list of winners here: https://lnkd.in/eEFPE4vk ✅Kima joined forces with ZkAGI to combine ZkAGI’s AI technology with Kima’s cross-infrastructure asset transfer protocol: https://lnkd.in/d_unVN8f ✅ On June 25, Kima joined its partner, Areon Network, for a X Space all about Kima Network’s solution: https://lnkd.in/eMqBRBG9 Want to become part of Syndika’s Venture Studio and bring your startup to the next level? 📢 Apply here: https://lnkd.in/eRmN3VD8 

Event Recap: 🚀 Monetizing Creativity: Financial Innovations for the Creator Economy I attended the "Monetizing Creativity: Financial Innovations for the Creator Economy" event hosted by SC Ventures, and it was an inspiring experience. As a musician, I understand the struggles of monetizing talent and the challenges that come with it. This event highlighted the immense potential for financial innovations in the booming creator economy, which is projected to reach half a trillion dollars by 2027. The event brought together industry experts from Franklin Templeton, Julius Baer, #ProjectEngram, and more, showcasing how emerging technologies can revolutionize this space. The panel featured distinguished speakers:  🎤 Eugene Liang (Project Engram)  🎤 Deyan Mihov (Artist)  🎤 Jonathan Chan (Julius Baer)  🎤 Chetan Karkhanis (Franklin Templeton)  🎤 Harald E. Etlvedt (SC Ventures) - Moderator 🍀 Key Insights: 1️⃣ Tokenization and Blockchain: These technologies can transform digital content into investable assets, providing new pathways for creators to achieve financial stability and liquidity. 2️⃣ Inconsistent Income Challenges: Eugene Liang highlighted the struggles creators face with traditional financial systems and how tokenization can address these issues. 3️⃣ Private Banking Integration: Jonathan Chan from Julius Baer discussed how private banks are incorporating new asset classes and providing custody for digital assets, meeting the growing demand from investors. 4️⃣ Access to Technology: Chetan Karkhanis emphasized the importance of platforms like OpenSea in enhancing liquidity and creating real-world tokenization opportunities for fine art and music. 5️⃣ IP Protection and Monetization: Deyan Mihov shared how blockchain can protect intellectual property, offering new monetization avenues and facilitating wealth transfer. 🗣 As a musician passionate about the creator economy, I was thrilled to be part of this event. Musicians and artists are not often highlighted in discussions about financial innovations, so it was fantastic to see our unique challenges addressed. I'm looking forward to the official launch of Project Engram, which promises to bring even more opportunities for creators. #CreatorEconomy #Blockchain #Tokenization #IPProtection #Fintech #Innovation #SCVentures