After months of volatility and extreme fear, crypto markets turned a positive corner in the second half of April, highlighting the industry’s big sentiment shift. For venture capital, it was business as usual, with investors continuing to pour money into promising startups across layer-1 blockchains, infrastructure, real-world asset tokenization (RWA), and Web3 social media.
This edition of VC Roundup highlights six notable funding deals from April.
Unto Labs Raises $14.4M for Layer-1 Blockchain
Blockchain R&D company Unto Labs raised $14.4 million to continue developing its scalable layer-1 network called Thru. The pre-seed and seed funding was led by venture firms Electric Capital and Framework, with support from angel investors in the Solana engineering community. The company, led by former Solana contributor Liam Heeger, argues that “blockchains painted themselves into a corner by inventing custom Virtual Machines (VMs),” which he believes has prevented mainstream adoption. Thru is built on the RISC-V standard, an open-source computer architecture not limited to blockchain and crypto-specific use cases.
Electric Capital partner Ren described Thru as the “next logical step” in blockchain development after Ethereum and Solana raised the standard on network performance.
MIT-incubated Optimum Closes Seed Round
Blockchain infrastructure developer Optimum closed an $11 million seed round with participation from at least 16 venture capital firms, including 1kx, Robot Ventures, Spartan, Longhash, and Animoca. Optimum is building a high-performance memory layer for the blockchain using Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) technology, developed by protocol founder Muriel Médard at MIT. This technology helps blockchain overcome scalability issues by allowing data to be broken down into smaller pieces, mixed, and then reconstructed by the recipient.
Octane Launches with $6.75M in Funding to Bring Cybersecurity to Crypto
Archetype and Winklevoss Capital led a $6.75 million seed round for Octane, an AI cybersecurity startup focused on detecting vulnerabilities in blockchain systems. With the rise of crypto attacks causing significant financial losses, Octane aims to continuously analyze smart contracts for potential vulnerabilities and provide AI-powered tools to help developers identify threats.
a16z Backs Inco’s $5M Raise
Blockchain confidentiality protocol Inco has closed a $5 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Crypto Startup Accelerator (a16z CSX), along with investors like Coinbase’s venture capital arm and others. Inco leverages cryptography to develop confidential computing technology for blockchains, with the goal of addressing the challenges of privacy in on-chain applications.
a16z, Coinbase Ventures Contribute to Towns Protocol’s $10M Raise
Towns Protocol, a Web3 social media platform, raised $10 million in a Series B round led by a16z, with additional backing from Coinbase Ventures and Benchmark. The funding will facilitate the launch of 10 billion TOWNS tokens on Base and Ethereum, aimed at fostering digital community engagement through messaging apps built on its open-source protocol.
RWA-focused Colb Raises $7.3M to Boost Pre-IPO Equity Opportunities
Switzerland-based fintech firm Colb Asset SA raised over $7 million in an oversubscribed seed extension aimed at advancing the tokenization of pre-IPO equity. Supported by a single private investor managing over $20 billion in assets, this funding will help Colb enhance its tokenization platform, supporting the wider adoption of its stablecoin.
In summary, April revealed significant investment in elements critical to the evolution of blockchain technology and its applications. As the market sentiment shifts positively, venture capital continues to play a vital role in advancing key innovations within the cryptocurrency sector.
