Crypto VC roundup: Story Protocol secures $80m to address IP theft
The crypto VC community turned out for several startups this week, including Story Protocol’s $80 million series B funding round.
The week, between Aug. 18 and Aug. 24, has been buzzing with activity in the crypto venture capital space. According to crypto funding tracker Crypto Fundraising, 32 blockchain startups raked in more than $202 million from various investors in that period.
Below we look at a few of the standouts.
Story Protocol, $80 million
Story Protocol raised $80 million in its series B round. Serial crypto VC firm Andreessen Horowitz led the round, which also saw participation from Polychain Capital, Hashed, Samsung Next, and SparkLabs Global among others.
The series B round pushes the San Francisco-based startup’s total funding to $140 million and values the company at an impressive $2.25 billion.
The company aims to tackle what it considers an escalating problem of intellectual property theft, particularly in the era of generative artificial intelligence.
Story’s blockchain network allows IP owners to store their creations on the platform, embedding licensing terms directly into smart contracts.
In that way, it ensures that IP owners are compensated whenever their content is used, countering the growing concerns of technology giants using AI models to ingest copyrighted material without proper authorization.
Sorella Labs, $7.5 million
Next on the list is Sorella Labs, also a San Francisco-based startup. The company secured $7.5 million in funding to further its work to develop tools designed to identify and process maximum extractable value activities on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain.
Research-driven tech investment company Paradigm led this particular funding round. Other participants included Nascent, Uniswap Ventures, Robot Ventures, and Bankless Ventures.
Sorella Labs plans to use the proceeds to expand its operations and speed up the development of its key products, Brontes and Angstrom.
Corn, $6.7 million
Corn is another winner in this week’s crypto VC fundraising column. The Ethereum layer-2 network, which uses hybrid tokenized Bitcoin (BTC) as gas, collected $6.7 million in a seed round led by Polychain Capital.
Binance Labs, Framework Ventures, as well as Polygon (MATIC) co-founder Sandeep Nailwal also lent a hand in the round.
Corn is reportedly looking to create a “crop circle” ecosystem that matches users, applications, and token holders, to address challenges faced by other decentralized networks, including insufficient liquidity and limited token utility.
BSX Exchange, $6.2 million
Meanwhile, BSX Exchange, a decentralized derivatives protocol built on the Ethereum L2 network Base, raised $6.2 million through pre-seed and seed funding rounds.
The seed round, worth $4 million, was led by Blockchain Capital. Other notable investors include Bankless Ventures and Maelstrom, the family office of BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes.
With this fresh capital, BSX plans to expand beyond derivatives trading, launching a spot aggregator in September as well as several earn-and-stake products shortly after.
Orderly Network, $5 million
Orderly Network, a project developing a web3 liquidity layer, was also on the right end of a $5 million round of funding. OKX Ventures, Manifold Trading, and Origin Protocol are among its backers.
The team behind the project plan to use the funds to bolster its capabilities in creating a permissionless liquidity layer for web3 trading across multiple blockchains.
Currently, Orderly supports six chains, including the Ethereum mainnet and Polygon. It intends to provide deep liquidity for any asset across those networks.
Other funding rounds
Wrapping up the notable VC funding rounds of the week are three projects, Soulbound, Stork Network, and Thalex. Between them, they managed to raise more than $12 million, with the web3 social gaming space getting $4 million from Animoca Brands to further its mission of empowering its new creator economy.
Soulbound is building a platform that combines GameFi and SocialFi to offer a new digital experience. The platform’s builders say they will use the money to establish gaming partnerships, grow social interactions, and expand streamer bounties as well as social questing.
On its part, Stork Network earned $4.705 million in seed funding to expand its product suite, including developing its open data market. Lightspeed Faction and Lattice co-led the round, which also saw participation from CMS and Wintermute Ventures.
Finally, Thalex, a crypto derivative exchange, raised 3 million euros ($3.3 million) in a series A extension. According to Axios, which exclusively reported on the fundraising, backers in the extended round included Bitfinex, Bitstamp and Flow Traders. IMC and Wintermute also invested in the project.
