Crypto Venture Weekly: May 19-25, 2025

Introduction

26 projects raised a total of $267M last week, led by World Foundation’s $135M public token sale and Catena Labs’ $18M seed round, while DePIN Pulse, Alchemy, and Apex Group drove M&A activity. Theta Capital launched a $175M fund-of-funds to back crypto-native VCs. James Ho positions Pendle as the leading stablecoin yield bet, Emma Cui charts crypto VC’s reset toward long-term fundamentals, and Mads Mathiesen unpacks the scalability and decentralization trade-offs of Multiple Concurrent Proposers. Here’s the breakdown of last week’s top deals and insights.

Key Highlights

• Notable Deals: World Foundation ($135M), Catena Labs ($18M), Roxom ($17.9M), True Markets ($11M), Hyperdrive ($6M), VOYA Games ($5M), Rover ($4.1M), and ARAI ($4M).
• M&A Activity: DePIN Pulse acquired DePIN.Ninja and Who Loves Burrito, Alchemy acquired HeyMint, and Apex Group acquired Tokeny.
• Funds: Theta Blockchain Ventures IV ($175M) launched.
• VC CT: James Ho positions Pendle as the top stablecoin yield bet amid regulatory tailwinds; Emma Cui declares crypto VC’s speculative era over and a disciplined revival underway; and Mads Mathiesen dissects Multiple Concurrent Proposers as a path to censorship resistance and protocol scalability.

Notable Deals

26 projects collectively raised $267 million last week. Here are eight that stood out:

World Foundation

• The Pitch: A proof-of-personhood protocol enabling a universal digital ID and global financial access
• Round: $135 million Public Token Sale
• Investors: Led by a16z crypto and Bain Capital Crypto, with participation from Mirana Ventures, Selini Capital, and Arctic Digital

Catena Labs

• The Pitch: Building an AI-native financial institution
• Round: $18 million Seed
• Investors: Led by a16z crypto with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Breyer Capital, and more

Roxom

• The Pitch: Developing a Bitcoin-denominated exchange
• Round: $17.9 million funding
• Investors: Borderless Capital, Draper Associates, Kingsway Capital, and Ego Death Capital

True Markets

• The Pitch: A mobile-first, stablecoin-native DeFi trading app on Solana
• Round: $11 million Series A
• Investors: Led by Accomplice and RRE Ventures, with participation from Variant, Reciprocal Ventures, PayPal Ventures, Solana Foundation, and Paxos

Hyperdrive

• The Pitch: Stablecoin money market for Hyperliquid
• Round: $6 million Series A
• Investors: Led by Hack VC and Arrington Capital, with participation from CMS Holdings, Amber Group, Delphi Ventures, and more

VOYA Games

• The Pitch: Crypto gaming studio developing Craft World
• Round: $5 million funding
• Investors: Led by 1kx and Makers Fund, with participation from RockawayX, Sebastien Borget, and more

Rover

• The Pitch: Building a Bitcoin liquid staking platform on Botanix
• Round: $4.1 million Seed
• Investors: Animoca Brands, CMS Holdings, MH Ventures, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Cogitent Ventures, Maelstrom, and more

ARAI

• The Pitch: Developing an AI-native co-pilot system for gaming
• Round: $4 million Seed
• Investors: Animoca Brands, Sequoia Capital, Folius Ventures, Gate Ventures, Skyland Ventures, and more

M&A Activity

DePIN Pulse acquired DePIN.Ninja and Who Loves Burrito

DePIN Pulse acquired DePIN.Ninja and Who Loves Burrito in a strategic consolidation aimed at streamlining the fragmented DePIN ecosystem data. The acquisitions unify key infrastructure insights into a single dashboard, DePIN Pulse V2, which offers real-time analytics across multiple blockchains, early-stage project discovery, mining and yield opportunity tracking, and a decentralized compute marketplace.

Alchemy acquired HeyMint

Alchemy acquired NFT launchpad HeyMint as part of its broader push to scale its Smart Wallets offering and streamline Web3 onboarding. HeyMint provides no-code tools for NFT collection creation and community growth across Ethereum and Layer-2 networks. Since its launch, HeyMint has supported over 40,000 creators and facilitated $38 million in revenue.

Apex Group acquired Tokeny

Fund administrator Apex Group announced plans to acquire 100% of tokenization firm Tokeny over a three-year period, deepening its commitment to digital asset infrastructure. A strategic investor since 2023, Apex aims to integrate Tokeny’s SaaS platform and its T-REX ERC-3643 token standard into its broader fund administration services. Tokeny has supported over $32 billion in asset tokenizations, with clients including ABN AMRO and Inveniam.

Funds

Theta Blockchain Ventures IV – $175M

Theta Capital Management raised $175 million for Theta Blockchain Ventures IV, a fund-of-funds backing crypto-native VCs focused on early-stage blockchain startups. The fund targets specialist managers like Polychain Capital, CoinFund, and Castle Island Ventures, aiming to leverage their compounded expertise and edge in early-stage investing. Theta, which pivoted to digital assets in 2018, sees dedicated crypto VCs as better positioned than generalists to navigate and capitalize on the sector’s resurgence.

VC CT: What the VCs are saying on Crypto Twitter

James Ho (Modular Capital)

• Published a thesis arguing Pendle is the leading indexed exposure to the rise of yield-bearing stablecoins, capturing 30% of the segment’s TVL and benefiting structurally from regulatory clarity and market expansion.

Emma Cui (LongHash Ventures)

• Argues that despite recent market disillusionment, crypto VC is undergoing a necessary reset, moving from speculative excess toward a more disciplined, product-market fit-driven cycle poised for long-term institutional relevance.

Mads Mathiesen (Maven 11)

• Explores the design trade-offs of Multiple Concurrent Proposers (MCP) as a mechanism to improve censorship resistance, decentralize MEV, and scale base layer throughput, while acknowledging challenges around ordering complexity, hardware demands, and finality coordination.

Quick Recap

• Total Deals: 26
• Total Raised: $267M
• Acquisitions: 5
• New Fund: Theta Blockchain Ventures IV – $175M

That’s a wrap for this week’s Crypto Venture Weekly. Thanks for tuning in, and see you next week!

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