The NFT marketplace OpenSea has reached a $1.5B valuation after a $100M Series B funding round led by a16z. This makes OpenSea the newest NFT-based unicorn, or a privately held startup company valued over $1B. A16z also led OpenSea’s $23M Series A round in March. This year, the venture giant also invested in Dapper Labs,…

When I joined MetaCartel Ventures’ weekly meeting online earlier this month I didn’t know what to expect.  The outfit’s bare-bones website looks like something university students would cook up on an all-nighter, with low-rez GIFs and, strangely, an embedded mp3 of Evanescence’s hit “Bring Me to Life.” Its whitepaper features images reminiscent of playing cards…

SushiSwap’s $60M strategic fundraising round has come under fire from community members who dislike the plan to offer investors deep discounts at a time when its tokens are slumping in the marketplace. Last week, the SushiSwap team introduced a proposal  to diversify the protocol’s treasury. The decentralized exchange holds the bulk of its treasury funds…

A series of unexpected trades in the last two days roiled the DeFi Education Fund set up by Uniswap token holders, leading to finger pointing and accusatory tweets as the newly formed lobbying organization struggled to fend off more controversy. It started yesterday when Igor Igamberdiev, a research analyst at The Block, said on Twitter…

In a record-breaking deal for a Latin American crypto company, Buenbit, an exchange based in Argentina has raised $11M in Series A funding. Buenbit, the leading cryptocurrency platform in South America’s second-biggest economy,  allows users to exchange fiat currency for BTC, ETH, and DAI.  In May, Buenbit launched operations in Peru, and now with their…

In a fresh move to bootstrap Gitcoin’s DAO, holders of the protocol’s GTC token voted to add a $50K category to its grants program. Gitcoin, a funding platform that supports open source development, typically concentrates on what it calls Grant categories. These include “Infrastructure Tech” and “Dapp Tech.” But Gitcoin released its DAO last month…

Investors continue to have an appetite for NFT collectibles despite the recent downturn in crypto markets. Wicked Craniums, an Ethereum-based, algorithmically-generated NFT project, launched on June 20 and all 10,762 pieces were sold out within the first 30 minutes. The NFTs were available to mint for 0.06 ETH, bringing the total raised by the project…

Unsecured loans, long a missing piece in the DeFi puzzle, may finally be coming to open finance. Goldfinch, a DeFi platform that specializes in making no-collateral loans, announced an $11M raise from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, DeFi Alliance, and other investors. Goldfinch enables borrowers to garner access to unsecured loans without having to go…

Notional Finance, a decentralized fixed-rate lending protocol built on Ethereum, closed a $10M Series A funding round led by Pantera with participation from ParaFi, 1confirmation, Spartan Group, Nascent, Nima Capital, and others.  “Notional’s mission is to bring fixed-rate borrowing and lending to Ethereum and take DeFi to a more mainstream audience that is interested in…

Injective Protocol, a decentralized derivatives exchange, said it raised a $10M at a $1B valuation from investors including Pantera Capital, BlockTower, Hashed, Cadenza Ventures (formerly BitMex Ventures), among others. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban also participated, while Cumberland, DRW’s crypto arm, disclosed its investment in the company. “Raising a sum of money so small relative…