Crypto VC funding: Dragonfly Capital backs Codex in $16m round

Several startups at the intersection of AI, blockchain, and fintech announced funding rounds this week. Codex raised the most capital, filling its coffers with $15.8 million.

Dragonfly Capital led the seed round. According to Fortune, which first broke the news, the effort was part of a seed round with roughly $14 million coming from Dragonfly.

Coinbase and Circle also took part in the fundraising, alongside Cumberland, Wintermute and Selini Capital.

That was just one of several funding rounds announced in the past week. Read on for more.

Ultra

• Luxembourg-based multi-family office NOIA Capital led the round through its NOIA Digital Assets fund.
• This latest investment follows the appointment of Gus van Rijckevorsel as our the company’s new CEO

The9 Limited

• The9 secured a $8 million investment through private placement agreements with leading cryptocurrency investment funds Elune Capital, Fine Vision Fund, and Bripheno Pte. Ltd.
• The company will issue Class A common shares priced based on the average closing price over the past 30 trading days. The newly issued shares are subject to a statutory lock-up period.

Ambient

• Ambient, a project merging AI and blockchain to deliver fast, low-cost smart services, has raised $7.2 million in a seed funding round backed by a16z’s crypto accelerator and Delphi Digital.
• The project uses a Bitcoin-like proof-of-work mechanism for security and a Solana-style architecture for speed and scalability, positioning it as a promising player in AI-driven blockchain innovation.

Cambrian Network

• Cambrian Network, a decentralized AI finance protocol, has raised $5.9 million in a seed funding round led by a16z’s Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX), with participation from Blockchain Builders and The Graph ecosystem angels.
• The funding supports Cambrian’s upcoming testnet and its involvement in the CSX 04 accelerator in San Francisco. Cambrian provides agents with real-time and historical financial data by integrating on-chain and off-chain sources, including social sentiment, to enhance decision-making. Its protocol lets developers balance speed and security by choosing between optimistic and verifiable data.

Mahojin

• Mahojin, an AI and blockchain integration project, has raised $5 million in a Series A funding round led by a16z Crypto’s CSX and Maelstrom Fund. The funding will support the development of open-source tools aimed at improving interoperability between AI and decentralized technologies.
• The company focuses on building AI-powered decentralized applications and is positioning itself as a key player at the intersection of open-source innovation and blockchain infrastructure.

Momentum

• Momentum, an early-stage startup aiming to automate collaboration between sales teams and the broader organization, has raised a $5 million seed round.
• The funding was led by Basis Set Ventures, with participation from Inovia Capital, Leadout Capital, South Park Commons, and industry angel investors.

Notable crypto VC funding rounds < $5 million

• The Fragmetric token sale went live on the Legion platform. It will run until April 8. The sale has a hard cap of $4 million, with a fully diluted valuation of $125 million.
• In a seed funding round, luxury investment platform Collecto raised €2.8 million (approximately $3.05 million). LinkedIn Italy CEO Marcello Albergoni, Accenture Interactive Managing Director Alessandro Zanotti, and senior partners from McKinsey Andrea Travasoni and Guido Frisiani led the investment.
• The hyper-casual finance platform Hana Network raised $1.75 million in a public sale round at a $40-million fully diluted valuation.
• Bloctopus, formerly known as LZero, raised $1 million in a seed round.
• StakeStone raised $1 million to strengthen its one-stop staking protocol for omnichain LST liquidity.
• BAI Fund, an on-chain agent fund operating within a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), raised $1 million. Morph and Foresight Ventures participated in the effort.