Boardroom’s latest Web3 & Tech VC Roundup includes deals from Geely, Superplastic, Voicemod, Caldera, Stelo Labs, and more.
Move over Tesla, the competition in the electric vehicles space is heating up.
China-based automotive company Geely Group closed a $750 million Series A round at a $13 billion. Geely is the maker of two-year-old smart EV brand Zeekr. The company will use its the fresh capital to further develop Zeekr’s tech and to expand globally. Geely will break into the European market later this year after releasing its first Zeekr product to the streets last October.
But Geely was only one of the major movers in the space this week. Let’s hop into some more recent funding deals in Boardroom’s latest Web3 & Tech VC Roundup.
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Worldwide Webb: $10M for Pixelated Web3 Games
Worldwide Webb, a pixel art-based metaverse game developer, closed a $10 million Series A led by Pantera Capital. The Web3 company will use the capital for hiring with the goal of integrating more NFTs into its game and forming partnerships with brands and IP holders.
“Worldwide Webb bridges the gap between traditional gaming and NFT communities via an ever-expanding catalog of browser-based mini-games, where every player can leverage a unique identity in the form of an NFT,” Pantera investment associate Sehaj Singh said in a press release. “Not only has Webb’s rapid-iteration on game development led to fun and engaging mini-games, but the Worldwide Webb platform has provided yet another channel for NFT communities to enhance engagement and community building.”
Three-year-old Worldwide Webb developed a multiplayer online roleplaying game that lets players integrate their NFTs to compete in battles, quests, and raids. The company is also working on launching a browser-based game called Blockbusterz that let’s players compete one-on-one.
Superplastic: $20M for Synthetic Celebrities
Web3-focused 3D character studio Superplastic closed a $20 million Series A round led by Amazon’s Alexa Fund. Animoca Brands, Galaxy Digital, Google Ventures, and more participated in the company’s latest funding round. Superplastic has raised $58 million to date.
Superplastic calles the characters it creates “synthetic celebrities” since majority of them or run with their own personas across social media platforms. Think of Superplastic’s characters as digital influencers. The 3D studio has also developed vinyl toys and released NFT collections.
Following its recent fundraise, Amazon Studios secures first dibs on all of Superplastic’s TV and film plans for its 3D creations. The studio is already working on an animated series called The Janky & Guggimon Show that will be released with Amazon Studios.
New Tech and crypto funds
- Bain Capital announced a $2.4 billion tech fund for private equity tech investments.
- SignalFire, a tech-enabled early-stage venture capital firm, raised over $900 million to invest and launch an Executive-in-Residence Program.
- Bill Qian, Binance’s former head of venture capital investments and acquistions, is looking to raise a $100 million crypto VC fund.
- Ripple’s Creator Fund invested $250 million to support phygital creators and NFT developers.
More Investments
- Voice changer software maker Voicemod raised $14.5 million for generative AI tech.
- Kaito, the developer of an AI-powered crypto search engine, closed a $5.3 million seed round led bt Dragonfly Capital.
- Agtech startup Source.ag raised a $25 million Series A to continue building AI-powered greenhouses.
- Galaxy Digital and PayPal co-led a $20 million seed round for Chaos Labs, a developer of a cybersecurity cloud platform for crypto protocols.
- Web3 security company Stelo Labs closed a $6 million seed round led by a16z.
- Blockchain security platform Ironblocks raised $7 million for product development, hiring and new partnerships.
- Web3 app infrastructure provider Caldera raised $9 million across two rounds led by Sequoia Capital and Dragonfly.
- Enterprise blockchain solutions provider SIMBA Chain was awarded $30 million to continue working on tech projects with the US Air Force.
- Videoconferencing company Scoot closed a $12 million Series A led by Woodland Capital.
- Customer success platform Vitally closed a $30 million Series B led by Next47.
- Dronamics, an autonomous cargo drone maker, raised $40 million in pre-Series A funding.
- Sending Labs raised $12.5 million to build the web3 communication stack.
- Empire Not Vampires raised $1 million to build multiplayer blockchain games.
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