Riot Platforms acquires Block Mining in $92.5m deal, NPC Labs raises $18m

This week’s crypto funding highlights include investments in web3 gaming, Ethereum scaling, Bitcoin infrastructure, and decentralized AI.

Riot Platforms Takes Over Block Mining

Our funding roundup begins with an acquisition. On July 24, Bitcoin (BTC) mining firm Riot Platforms announced that it had acquired Block Mining, a Kentucky-based Bitcoin miner, in a $92.5 million deal.

According to Riot, the acquisition could potentially increase the company’s operational capacity by 60 megawatts, with plans to increase it to 110 MW by the end of 2024.

Riot paid for the acquisition in exchange for $18.5 million in cash and $74 million in common stock.

NPC Labs, $18 million

NPC Labs, the Web3 gaming infrastructure startup founded by three former Coinbase employees, has raised $18 million in a seed funding round.

The round was led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Mantle EcoFund, Makers Fund, Bitscale Capital, Hashed, Mirana Ventures, and Collab+Currency.

The total amount raised has reached $21 million, after the project raised $3 million in its last pre-seed round.

NPC Labs said it will use the funding to bring on new members to the team, particularly engineers, and aims to increase the adoption of on-chain games through B3.fun, a game-scaling ecosystem built on Base.

Caldera, $15 million

Web3 infrastructure platform Caldera also benefited from this week’s VC activity, raising $15 million in a Series A funding round.

Founders Fund led the round, which also included Lattice, Dragonfly, Arkstream Capital, and Sequoia Capital. It brings Caldera’s total funding to $25 million, with the project set to raise $10 million in 2023.

The US-based startup aims to help developers launch Ethereum tokens or scale networks “with a single click.” Injective has a long list of clients including RARI Chain and ApeChain with a combined total of more than $800 million in locked value.

Igloo Inc., $11 million

Igloo, Inc., the parent company of NFT project Pudgy Penguins, has also gotten in on the action, raising $11 million to develop Abstract, a new layer-2 scaling network on Ethereum (ETH).

Founders Fund led Igloo’s funding round, which saw investments from Selini Capital, Everest Ventures, 1kx, and Fenbushi Capital.

Igloo reportedly plans to use the money raised to set up a new organization called Cube Labs, which will oversee Abstract’s development.

In June, Igloo acquired Frame, another Layer-2 network that largely supports NFTs. Igloo said it will use the team at Frame to build the Abstract project.

Bitlayer, $11 million

Bitcoin Layer-2 startup Bitlayer has raised $11 million in its Series A funding round. The round, led by Franklin Templeton, ABCDE, and Framework Ventures, brings Bitlayer’s total investment to $16 million.

1/ Bitlayer raised $11 million in our Series A funding round led by Franklin Templeton [@FTI_DA] and ABCDE [@ABCDELabs]Our total investment reached 16 million dollars.

Franklin Templeton’s participation is a significant milestone for Bitlayer to become the first Bitcoin Layer… picture.twitter.com/4PoF3ft4Zj

— Bitlayer (@BitlayerLabs) July 23, 2024

It is noteworthy that Franklin Templeton’s participation is the first strategic investment from an ETF-licensed institution in the Bitcoin Layer-2 project.

Other notable crypto VC fundraisings

While the projects mentioned above brought in the largest investments this week, several other significant rounds, including the Riot Platforms deal, brought the week’s VC funding total to over $210 million. According to data from Crypto Fundraising, some of these include:

aPriori raised $8 million in a seed funding round led by Pantera Capital, bringing its total funding to $10 million. Mezo raised $7.5 million in a strategic funding round led by Ledger Cathay Fund. OpenSocial raised $6 million in a strategic funding round led by Framework Ventures and North Island Ventures, bringing its total funding since inception to $26 million. DAOBase closed a $6 million funding round, raising investments from SevenX Ventures, AntAlpha Ventures, and others. Network3 raised $5.5 million in pre-seed and seed funding. The round included Borderless Capital, EV3, IoTeX Eco fund, SNZ, Waterdrip Capital, and Bing Ventures. Redpill AI raised $5 million in a seed funding round led by Animoca Brands and DFG.