Morpho leads crypto VC week with $50m round; DuelNow, Daylight follow suit

Crypto startups raised $107.6 million between July 28 and Aug. 3, led by Morpho’s $50 million strategic round and key investments in DuelNow and Daylight.

In another eventful week for blockchain startups, 19 companies collectively secured $107.6 million in funding, per information from Crypto Fundraising. 

Leading the pack, decentralized crypto lender Morpho raised $50 million in a strategic round, overshadowing other notable investments, including DuelNow’s $11 million and Daylight’s $9 million. 

Below, we look at some of the notable crypto fundraising rounds that made the news.

Morpho, $50 million

As reported by crypto.news, Morpho emerged as the week’s top fundraiser, attracting $50 million in a strategic round led by Ribbit Capital. The round also included significant contributions from a16z and Coinbase Ventures.

The company, which started as an optimization layer for Aave (AAVE) and Compound (COMP), has evolved into Morpho Blue, a comprehensive lending protocol with built-in risk management features. 

When announcing the results of the round, CEO Paul Frambot emphasized that the new funding would go towards improving Morpho’s decentralization and supporting its global growth.

DuelNow, $11 million

Another winner in this week’s VC activities was decentralized sports betting platform DuelNow, which raked in $11 million in fresh capital.

The investment was spearheaded by GEM Digital Limited, which contributed $10 million. It also included an additional $1 million from prominent angel investors such as Litecoin (LTC) creator Charlie Lee and Dogecoin (DOGE) co-founder Billy Markus. 

DuelNow is looking to redefine the sports betting industry by using blockchain technology on the Arbitrum (ARB) network, promising a transparent and peer-to-peer betting experience.

Daylight, $9 million

Elsewhere, Daylight, a project specializing in decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) for energy distribution, raised $9 million in a series A round. 

A16z Crypto led the round, joined by Framework Ventures and others. Daylight said it will use the funding to accelerate its efforts to optimize energy consumption and distribution by connecting various energy devices, such as solar panels and electric vehicle chargers, to a decentralized network. 

The initiative aims to provide more efficient energy solutions, potentially transforming the energy sector by leveraging distributed technologies.

Hyperbolic Labs, $7 million

Artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure startup Hyperbolic Labs Inc. closed a $7 million seed funding round led by Polychain Capital and Lightspeed Faction.

The company plans to use the funds to develop its platform, which aggregates idle GPU resources from around the globe to provide affordable AI compute power. 

The team behind the initiative aims to democratize access to AI technology by offering significant cost reductions for businesses and researchers needing high-performance computing.

Other noteworthy investments

• Pichi Finance, a protocol focused on trustless points trading, raised $2.5 million in a seed round led by UOB Venture Management, Signum Capital, and Mantle Network. 
• Raad Labs, a blockchain climate tech company, collected $2.25 million to enhance climate data measurement through a distributed sensor network.
• Other companies in this category include those in pre-seed rounds and unknown rounds, which collectively raised $11.1 million.