Funding Weekly Report | 15 publicly disclosed funding events, Based completes $11.5 million Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital.

Highlights of this episode

According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 15 investment and financing events in the global blockchain sector last week (February 23 - March 1), with a total funding amount exceeding US$129 million. An overview is as follows:

• In the DeFi sector, two investment and financing events were announced. Among them, Based, a web trading and payment application built on Hyperliquid infrastructure, completed an $11.5 million Series A financing round, led by Pantera Capital.
• Three investment and financing events were announced in the Web3+AI sector, including t54 Labs completing a $5 million seed round with participation from Ripple and others;
• Four investment and financing events were announced in the infrastructure & tools sector, including a $40 million investment by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank in digital infrastructure Zetrix AI.
• The prediction market sector announced three investment and financing events, including the completion of a $3 million seed round for prediction market protocol TBD, co-led by CMT Digital and ParaFi.
• Two investment and financing events were announced in the centralized finance sector, including a $30 million funding round for crypto trading platform STS Digital, led by CMT Digital.

DeFi

Based has completed an $11.5 million Series A funding round, led by Pantera Capital.

Based, a web-based trading and payment application built on Hyperliquid infrastructure, announced the completion of an $11.5 million Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Wintertermute Ventures, and Karatage. Based stated that it has over 100,000 registered users, 30,000 monthly active users, a cumulative transaction volume of approximately $40 billion, and cumulative revenue of nearly $14 million. The company plans to expand its AI-driven "agentic commerce" business and into the North American market. This funding round, which began in the fourth quarter of 2025 and closed last week, was structured as equity investment plus token warrants.

Nasdaq-listed Solana Treasury, a DeFi development firm, has made a strategic investment in the stablecoin protocol Apyx.

Nasdaq-listed Solana DeFi Development announced a strategic investment in the stablecoin protocol Apyx. The specific investment amount was not disclosed. The investment aims to establish an early foothold in the emerging dividend-backed stablecoin (DBS) category. Apyx's model converts dividend flows into on-chain yields, providing a scarce yield opportunity in the over $300 billion stablecoin market, while also aligning with the trend of digital asset treasury companies accumulating digital assets through preferred stock.

AI

t54 Labs has raised $5 million in seed funding, with participation from Ripple, Franklin Templeton, and others.

San Francisco-based AI agent trust infrastructure startup t54 Labs has raised $5 million in seed funding, co-led by Anagram, PL Capital, and Franklin Templeton, with participation from Ripple, Virtuals Ventures, Blockchain Coinvestors, and ABCDE. Founded in January 2025, t54 Labs focuses on providing AI agents capable of autonomously initiating payments and transactions with integrated tools for identity verification (“Know Your Agent”), real-time risk control, credit limits, and settlement. It utilizes blockchain as a programmable and auditable settlement and accountability layer. Currently, its products are available on networks such as XRP Ledger, Solana, and Base, and it is developing an open-source trust layer for the x402 payment protocol incubated by Coinbase. Recently, it also partnered with Evernorth, a digital asset treasury company supported by Ripple.

Finrob, an AI-native research platform targeting the financial and crypto markets, has raised $3.9 million in seed funding.

Finrob, an AI-native research platform for the financial and cryptocurrency markets, announced the completion of a $3.9 million seed funding round, with participation from Maven 11, Placeholder VC, Node Capital, Archetype, Dispersion Capital, and Fabric Ventures.

Finrob provides the financial and crypto markets with a professional AI agent powered by Claude, GPT-5.2, and Gemini 3.1, enabling real-time on-chain analytics and market intelligence queries. The platform integrates data sources such as Glassnode, CoinGecko, and DefiLlama, allowing users to access complex data through a conversational interface. Furthermore, Finrob employs a pay-per-use model based on the x402 protocol and uses USDC for settlement, aiming to lower the cost barrier for institutional research.

PlutonAI has raised $2.7 million in seed and private funding, led by kitchenvc.

PlutonAI, a project focused on DeFAI (Decentralized Artificial Intelligence Finance) on Telegram, has completed a $2.7 million seed and private funding round, led by kitchenvc and supported by HyperGPT incubation. The funds will be used for core platform development, ecosystem and agent expansion, and the construction of scalable, production-ready AI infrastructure. The goal is to create a DeFAI gateway driven by intelligent agents, promoting real-world on-chain applications and value creation.

OpenAI announced it has secured $110 billion in new investment at a valuation of $730 billion.

OpenAI announced the completion of a record $110 billion funding round at a valuation of $730 billion. Amazon stated that it has invested $50 billion in this round. OpenAI said that SoftBank Group and Nvidia each invested $30 billion.

(This financing event is not included in this week's statistics.)

Infrastructure & Tools

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank, will invest $40 million in Zetrix AI, a digital infrastructure company.

Malaysian digital infrastructure services provider Zetrix AI Bhd. has secured approximately US$40 million in equity funding from International Finance Corp., the investment arm of the World Bank, to expand its digital infrastructure in Malaysia, Southeast Asia, and other emerging markets. The two companies will collaborate through a subsidiary slated for a Nasdaq listing to advance projects supporting Malaysia's national digital identity system and blockchain service network. Zetrix Managing Director TS Wong stated that its AI business unit, AI Foundation Lab, aims to complete its Nasdaq listing by the end of 2026.

AurumX ecosystem infrastructure manadia completes $7 million seed funding round

Manadia, a Web3-based infrastructure for verifiable data and AI collaboration, has officially announced the completion of a $7 million seed funding round. Investors include OKX Ventures, Pillar VC, One Way Ventures, Quasar Holding Co., and Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, also participated in this round.

This project, jointly incubated and developed by AurumX's investment arm AUR Labs and leading global institutions, focuses on the underlying infrastructure for low-trust-dependent data settlement and AI collaboration. It provides core capabilities such as the VERITAS verifiable oracle, AI Agent collaboration, privacy-preserving settlement, and compliant payment, offering secure and reliable value exchange and cross-system collaboration support for the financial, digital asset, and AI ecosystems.

Bluprynt has raised $4.25 million in seed funding, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Robinhood, and others.

Crypto information disclosure company Bluperynt has completed an oversubscribed $4.25 million seed funding round, led by Valor Capital Group, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Robinhood, Selah Ventures, Quona Capital, and Nubank co-founder Edward Wible, among others.

Founded by Georgetown University professor Christopher J. Brummer, the company aims to provide simplified global compliance solutions for digital assets. Brummer likens the company's business to "tax software for compliance," helping banks, asset managers, stablecoin issuers, and payment companies bring their core businesses on-chain within a regulated framework. Previous seed and pre-round investors include former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo and entrepreneur Mark Cuban.

Rhythmic, a stablecoin-based payment infrastructure provider, has raised $4 million in seed funding, led by Dragonfly and HadickM.

Aaron, a former payments and digital asset professional, announced that his company, Rhythmic, has completed a $4 million seed funding round, led by Dragonfly and HadickM, with participation from Mirana, The Fintech Fund, and others. Rhythmic is building a financial infrastructure platform for consumer internet companies, embedding accounts, stored value, cards, and rewards systems "natively" into their products, with stablecoins handling fund transfers and settlements at the underlying level. Users only experience "holding balance, receiving rewards, and making any purchases" on the front end, without directly interacting with wallets or using the concept of "using stablecoins." This round of funding will be used to improve the core platform, connect with initial partners, and expand the engineering and compliance teams.

Centralized Finance

Cryptocurrency trading platform STS Digital has raised $30 million in funding, led by CMT Digital.

STS Digital, a crypto options trading platform targeting institutional investors, has raised $30 million in funding, led by CMT Digital, with participation from Kraken, Arrington Capital, and Fidelity Investments. STS Digital offers options contracts for over 400 cryptocurrencies and acts as an options market maker, providing liquidity to asset pools. The company currently has nearly 50 employees, and its clients include the Uniswap Foundation. It projects its annual revenue will triple between 2024 and 2025. This funding round will be used to expand trading volume and hire more staff.

JPYC, the issuer of the Japanese yen stablecoin, has completed a Series B funding round of approximately $12 million, led by Asteria.

JPYC, the issuer of the Japanese yen stablecoin, has completed its Series B funding round, raising approximately 1.78 billion yen (about US$12 million). The round was led by Japanese IT solutions provider Asteria, with the majority of the funding coming from Japanese companies and investment funds, and BitFlyer Holdings also participating. JPYC is scheduled to launch in October 2025 under Japan's money transfer regulatory framework and is currently the only onshore yen stablecoin. It has partnered with Densan Systems, a payment infrastructure provider covering approximately 65,000 convenience stores in Japan, to explore applications for domestic payments, cross-border remittances, and travel payments within convenience store settings. It also participates in Circle's stablecoin foreign exchange quotation system, StableFX, for cross-border settlements.

Prediction Market

Prediction market protocol TBD has raised $3 million in seed funding, co-led by CMT Digital and ParaFi.

Solana-based prediction market protocol TBD announced the completion of a $3 million seed funding round, co-led by CMT Digital and ParaFi, with participation from Jump Crypto. CMT and ParaFi will receive board observer seats. Previously, the project completed an $800,000 angel round with participation from Solana co-founder Raj Gokal and others.

Founded by former dYdX team members, TBD is a prediction market protocol focused on "validating" human opinion. The protocol uses World ID for authentication to ensure voting participants are real humans, while prediction trading is open to all users. Users can bet on the results of various opinion polls, and voters receive USDC rewards for participating. The project has now completed its private testing phase and officially launched, recording over 19 million votes during the testing period.

Prediction market Kash completes $2 million Pre-Seed funding round, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and others.

Kash, a social-native prediction market platform, announced the completion of a $2 million Pre-Seed funding round. Participants included Big Brain Holdings, Spartan Group, Coinbase Ventures, Kosmos Ventures, Halo Capital, MoonRock Capital, Polaris Fund, and Fabric VC. Kash aims to embed prediction markets directly into social media, initially supporting the X platform. Users can interact with @kash_bot to transform their daily blog posts into tradable markets for real-time events, thus financializing their opinions. Kash utilizes on-chain transparent settlement, dynamic multipliers, and ranking lists to allow users to express their opinions on topics such as elections, macroeconomics, and sports without needing to switch to an external app, pricing the truth through market mechanisms.

Prediction market platform Fireplace has raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding, led by Frachtis.

Fireplace, a professional prediction market trading platform, has completed a $1.5 million pre-seed funding round led by Frachtis, with participation from several VCs and angel investors, including White Star Capital. The funds will be used to build a cross-platform prediction market trading infrastructure for institutions, including cross-scenario aggregation, intelligent order routing, real-time data, institutional-grade execution, charting tools, and features such as wallets, whale tracking, and "insider" tracking.

other

Tether makes strategic investment in global internet marketplace platform Whop

Tether announced a strategic investment (the specific amount was not disclosed) in WHOP, the world's largest online marketplace, with over 18.4 million users, annual revenue of approximately $3 billion, and a monthly transaction volume growth rate of 25%. As part of the investment partnership, WHOP will integrate Tether's Wallet Development Kit (WDK), enabling creators and users to make efficient payments using USD₮ and USA₮. This collaboration aims to reduce friction and costs associated with traditional payment systems using stablecoin technology, supporting WHOP's international expansion into Latin America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region.

According to TFN , Whop has received a $200 million investment from Tether, valuing the company at $1.6 billion.

(This financing event is not included in this week's statistics.)

game:

Power Protocol, a blockchain game infrastructure platform, has received $3 million in funding from Bitkraft Ventures.

Power Protocol, a blockchain gaming infrastructure platform, has secured $3 million in funding from Bitkraft Ventures, bringing its total funding to $15.5 million. Power Protocol has built infrastructure for several collaborating studios, including Pixion Games, the developer of Fableborne. Its aim is to create scalable systems for multiple games, enabling game developers to adopt POWER token economics and share on-chain infrastructure, rather than launching isolated chains and tokens.