Between September 7 and September 13, there were 31 investment and financing events in the crypto market, including 11 in DeFi, 5 in infrastructure, 4 in DePIN, 3 in gaming, 1 in CeFi, 1 in CeDeFi, 1 in healthcare, 1 in AI, 1 in tools, 1 in RWA, 1 in ReFi, and 1 in creator economy. 

This week, there were 3 financing rounds exceeding 10 million USD:

• PayFi network Huma Finance completed a $38 million funding round, with investors including Distributed Global and ParaFi Capital.

• Decentralized renewable energy network Fuse completed a $12 million funding round, with Multicoin Capital as the investor.

• Open personal AI platform PIN AI completed a $10 million pre-seed funding round, with investors including a16z and Hack VC. 

This week, the investment and financing activity in the crypto market has significantly rebounded compared to last week. After a long period of silence, a16z has frequently appeared in this week's financing rounds. Could this be a signal of optimism for the future market? PayFi network Huma Finance secured the largest funding of the week, amounting to $38 million.

The investment and financing projects this week are sorted by financing amount as follows:

DeFi

1. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 13 September, Derive completed a funding round for an undisclosed amount, investors include Georgios Vlachos, DCF GOD, and others. Lyra is an options Automated Market Maker (AMM) that allows traders to buy and sell cryptocurrency options based on liquidity pools. Liquidity Providers (LPs) deposit sUSD (a stablecoin) into one of Lyra's Market Maker Vaults (MMV) for specific assets. This liquidity is used to establish two-way (buy and sell) options markets for the assets designated to the vault (e.g., ETH Market Maker Vault LP quotes options on ETH). LPs deposit liquidity into the vault to earn fees paid when options are traded. Traders use Lyra to trade options. They can either buy options from the MMV or sell options to the MMV. Traders pay fees to the LPs (in the form of market-making spreads) as compensation for their liquidity.

2. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 12 September, Gradient Network completed a funding round for an undisclosed amount, with investors including Pantera Capital, Multicoin Capital, and others. Gradient Network is a decentralized protocol focused on innovating computational power and staking solutions. The platform aims to achieve interoperability between different blockchain networks (such as Ethereum and TAO network) through its liquid staking service.

3. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 12 September, Eigenpie completed a seed round funding for an undisclosed amount, with investors including Robot Ventures, Arbitrum, and others. Eigenpie is a re-staking SubDAO that offers Liquid Stake token holders the opportunity to re-stake their assets and expand their earning potential. By creating dedicated liquid re-staking for each LST accepted on its platform, Eigenpie effectively isolates the risks associated with any specific LST.

4. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 12 September, Vektor completed an M&A funding round for an undisclosed amount, with Nirvana Labs as the investor. Vektor is a DeFi position management protocol that institutional and individual investors can use to increase DeFi returns or reduce unnecessary losses.

5. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 12 September, INFINIT completed a $6 million funding round, with investors including Electric Capital, Mirana Ventures, and others. INFINIT is a DeFi abstraction layer that eliminates the massive friction involved in launching and scaling DeFi ecosystems. With INFINIT, anyone can launch and scale DeFi protocols on all L1, L2, and modular blockchains in minutes.

6. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 12 September, BTA Protocol completed a $1.75 million A1 round funding, investors include Crypto Labs, Cityblok, and others. BTA Protocol is a BTC-based decentralized ecosystem protocol offering applications such as Staking protocol, Liquidity protocol, Range Stability Protocol (RSP), Launchpool, and Lending protocol.

7. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 11 September, Carrot completed a $600,000 Pre-seed round funding, investors include BOOGLE, Bartosz Lipiński, and others. Carrot is the simplest way to passively benefit from Solana DeFi using a single token that provides the highest average yield. By continuously monitoring each lending protocol, it rebalances funds when better rates are available. Carrot ensures stablecoins earn higher APR faster, optimizing returns efficiently and effectively.

8. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 11 September, Huma Finance completed a $38 million funding round; investors include Distributed Global, ParaFi Capital, and others. Huma Finance is a PayFi network that powers global payment financing, providing instant liquidity anytime, anywhere.

9. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 10 September, Ammalgam completed a $2.5 million seed round funding, investors include Faction, Framework Ventures, and others. Ammalgam unlocks more DeFi by combining lending and trading into a single protocol. This combination forms a source of yield while improving capital efficiency and unlocking unlimited strategies for market makers.

10. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 10 September, Syrupal Protocol completed a seed round funding for an undisclosed amount, with unknown investors. Syrupal Protocol is an on-chain options system. Everyone can participate in one-stop trading, earning, and purchasing structured products.

11. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 9 September, Cork Protocol completed a funding round for an undisclosed amount, investors include a16z, IDEO CoLab Ventures, and others. Cork Protocol is an anchored asset protocol that guarantees anchored assets can be exchanged at a 1:1 ratio for underlying assets (e.g., ezeth:eth), aiming to help stabilize DeFi and achieve deeper pegged liquidity.

Infrastructure

1. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 11 September, Hyperbridge completed a $2.5 million seed round funding, investors include Web3 Foundation, Scytale Digital, and others. Hyperbridge is a crypto-economic coprocessor supported by consensus and storage proofs, enabling secure, verifiable interoperability. Hyperbridge is the HTTPS of blockchain interoperability, providing on-chain and off-chain SDKs for developers to securely send cross-chain messages (POST requests) and read on-chain storage (GET requests).

2. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 10 September, Fountain completed a $3.5 million seed round funding; investors include NGC Ventures, Morningstar Ventures, and others. Fountain is building the web3 version of Okta, integrating company custodial accounts, exchanges, wallets, and dApps to manage assets in one place. Administrators can delegate different applications to employees without sharing private keys. Fountain also provides audit trails for compliance requirements.

3. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 10 September, StakeWith.us completed an M&A funding round for an undisclosed amount, with Nansen as the investor. StakeWith.us provides secure yield solutions for crypto asset investors in DeFi and PoS (Proof of Stake) ecosystems, and has launched an automated yield platform with staking services called Unagii.

4. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 10 September, t1 Protocol completed a $2.5 million Pre-seed round funding, investors include a16z, PNYX Ventures, and others. The t1 protocol is a fast finality scaling solution for Ethereum. It supports real-time proof generation to unify Ethereum.

5. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 10 September, Blocksense Network completed a $4 million seed round funding, investors include Permutation, a16z, and others. Blocksense is a permissionless oracle network with the most efficient cost structure, allowing any protocol builder to bootstrap any data source in minutes.

DePIN

1. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 13 September, Fuse completed a $12 million funding round, with Multicoin Capital as the investor. Fuse is a decentralized renewable energy network providing distributed energy resource (DER) installation, power trading, and electricity retail. Fuse's subsidiary, Fuse Energy, is a vertically integrated electricity retailer. Fuse has also launched Project Zero, a decentralized physical infrastructure network for renewable energy.

2. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 11 September, Wingbits completed a $3.5 million seed round funding, investors include Borderless Capital, Tribe Capital, and others. Wingbits is dedicated to improving aviation safety and efficiency through advanced flight tracking technology. Wingbits rewards users who set up hardware to capture Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) transmissions from commercial aircraft. ADS-B provides detailed information about aircraft GPS position, altitude, ground speed, and other data.

3. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 11 September, Titan Network completed a seed round funding for an undisclosed amount; investors include Arrington Capital, DePIN X, and others. Titan Network is a digital resource network aimed at matching community idle resources with global demand, enabling every user to easily leverage the power of DePIN services and participate in building the value internet.

4. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 11 September, CUDIS completed a $5 million funding round, with Draper Associates as the investor. CUDIS is an AI-driven wearable DePIN product that enables data ownership. CUDIS allows users to passively own and potentially monetize their data, which in the long term can lower the entry cost of maintaining a healthy lifestyle globally.

Gaming

1. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 10 September, CASTILE completed an $8 million funding round; investors include SevenX Ventures, OKX Ventures, and others. CASTILE is a 3A idle RPG and Roguelike game set in a fantasy Cthulhu universe.

2. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 10 September, Moku completed a $5.35 million funding round; investors include a16z, Framework Ventures, and others. Moku is a Web3 gaming platform that helps players connect with game guilds, NFT casting pages, game strategy communities, and more.

3. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 10 September, Vibes completed a $2 million angel round funding, investors include Igloo, Pacific Meta, and others. Vibes is a digital and physical collectible card game designed by Orange Cap Games around the Pudgy Penguins IP.

Others

1. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 13 September, Open Forest Protocol completed a seed round funding for an undisclosed amount, investors include NEAR Protocol, GS Futures, and others. Open Forest Protocol is an open platform based on public blockchains for transparently measuring, verifying, and funding reforestation projects. The platform can quickly and affordably verify carbon data for climate projects anywhere in the world, providing possibilities and opportunities for these projects, including carbon financing.

2. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 12 September, GasHawk completed a $1.6 million Pre-seed round funding, with investors including Alchemy Ventures, AVID3, and others. GasHawk is a free-to-use tool that helps users submit transactions intelligently when gas fees are cheap, saving on Ethereum gas fees. Instead of sending TXs directly to the Ethereum network, GasHawk users send signed TXs to the GasHawk RPC proxy.

3. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 12 September, OpenEden completed a strategic funding round for an undisclosed amount, with Binance Labs as the investor. OpenEden is a tokenized T-Bill vault that brings real-world assets into Web3, allowing stablecoin holders to earn yield from US Treasury securities. As the first smart contract vault created for US Treasury Bills ("T-Bills"), OpenEden TBILL Vault offers investors direct exposure to a pool of short-term T-Bills through OpenEden's TBILL token, which is backed 1:1 by Treasury securities as well as USD token ("USDC") and USD reserves. TBILL investors will receive capital returns that reflect the returns offered by the underlying Treasury bills held in a bankruptcy-remote special purpose vehicle.

4. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 11 September, Blum completed a funding round for an undisclosed amount, with Binance Labs as the investor. Blum is a hybrid exchange that offers universal token access through gamification in Telegram mini-apps. Blum provides access to CEX and DEX tokens on one platform, supports over 30 chains, and offers additional features including AI navigation, P2P trading, derivatives trading, and more.

5. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 11 September, Universal Health Token completed a $1.2 million Pre-seed round funding, investors include Animoca Brands, P2 Ventures, and others. Universal Health Token (UHT) is a gamified healthcare platform, part of GOQii's Web3 business division, driving the gamification of preventive healthcare through blockchain technology. The platform aims to reshape society's perception of health through the combination of technology and healthcare. UHT incentivizes users to rethink their lifestyle habits and embrace healthier lifestyles through exclusive NFTs, event access rights, and health product discounts.

6. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 10 September, PIN AI completed a $10 million Pre-seed round funding, with investors including a16z, Hack VC, and others. PIN AI is an open-source personal AI platform that opens up new realms of personal digital experiences by integrating open-source artificial intelligence and blockchain technology, protecting data ownership and privacy.

7. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 9 September, DRiP completed an $8 million seed round funding, with investors including Coinbase Ventures, NFX, and others. DRiP is a leading creator platform on the Solana blockchain, allowing artists and creators to distribute digital works such as art and music to their fans. DRiP focuses on mainstream-friendly user experiences and is expanding the types of content and experiences available to creators, including news, videos, and podcasts.

8. According to ROOTDATA's investment data on 8 September, Puntored completed a $2 million funding round, with Stellar Development Foundation as the investor. Puntored is a Colombian fintech company providing financial services such as payments, credit, remittances, and prepaid services to middle and low-income populations in the Latin American region. Puntored enables cross-border transactions in Latin America through the Stellar blockchain network.