25 projects raised $109M last week, led by Conduit ($36M), Beam ($7M), and Donut ($7M), while Blockchain Builders and Metalayer each launched early-stage funds focused on the intersection of crypto and AI, and on financial infrastructure. Orange Cap Games acquired Moonbirds from Yuga Labs to expand its Web3 gaming IP portfolio. Rob Hadick spotlighted stablecoins’ B2B adoption surge, Wei Dai introduced a design constraint framework for onchain privacy, and Simon Kim cautioned against frothy NAV premiums in crypto treasury stocks. Here’s your breakdown of the week’s top deals and insights.
25 projects collectively raised $109 million last week. Here are eight that stood out:
Orange Cap Games (OCG) acquired Moonbirds in a deal that transfers ownership of the Moonbirds, Mythics, and Oddities NFT collections from Yuga Labs, marking a strategic expansion of OCG’s Web3-native gaming universe. The acquisition brings Moonbirds under the umbrella of the Vibes trading card game creator, with plans to develop new products, integrate the IP into the metaverse platform Otherside, and commit to ApeChain for any future Layer-2 deployments.
Blockchain Builders closed a $28 million debut venture fund, targeting pre-seed and seed-stage crypto startups emerging from Stanford and peer academic institutions. Backed by founders with roots in Stanford’s blockchain research, the fund has already deployed over $16 million into ventures including modular AI layer 0G, privacy-focused compute startup Nexus Labs, and decentralized AI cloud Hyperbolic. With a focus on the intersection of AI and blockchain, Blockchain Builders plans to allocate the remaining capital by year-end and is exploring a second fund to expand its university-linked deal sourcing to schools like Carnegie Mellon and Princeton.
Metalayer launched its $25 million venture fund to back early-stage crypto startups modernizing global financial infrastructure. Led by alumni of Two Sigma, Metalayer Fund I applies a data-driven approach to long-term venture investing, with a focus on blockchain applications in financial services, particularly stablecoin payments, trading infrastructure, and private credit. Metalayer is building infrastructure to enhance its investment process and is backed by a range of institutions, family offices, and industry executives.
That’s a wrap for this week’s Crypto Venture Weekly. Thanks for tuning in, and see you next week!
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Jake is a Research Analyst on the Protocol Research team. He previously worked as an Investment Analyst at an AI-driven crypto research platform and as a Venture Analyst at a digital assets venture fund. He advised multiple RWA tokenization projects on tokenomics. Jake graduated from the University of Southern California, where he studied Philosophy and Finance.