Last Week's Crypto VC Funding: $35M Raised in 9 Deals, Featuring Uniswap DAO

In the week between October 30 and November 3, there was notable activity in the fundraising of blockchain projects. The highlights included Ekubo Protocol raising $12 million and the AI-based blockchain project Modulus securing $6.3 million in funding.

During this period, blockchain projects managed to raise a total of $34.7 million through nine different deals. This marked a significant decrease compared to the previous week when the fundraising total exceeded $107 million. DeFi Llama provided the data for these figures.

The most substantial fundraising event of the week involved the Uniswap DAO investing $12 million worth of UNI tokens in the StarkNet-based market maker Ekubo Protocol. In return, they received a 20% share of governance tokens.

The Uniswap community passed the “Invest in Ekubo Protocol” temperature check proposal with 63.82% of votes in favor. According to the proposal, Uniswap will invest 3 million UNIs (worth approximately $12 million) in the Starknet AMM Ekubo Protocol in exchange for a 20% share of…

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 29, 2023

AI-Driven Blockchain Ventures: Fundraising Insights and Trends

Other noteworthy deals included Modulus, an AI data verifier using zero-knowledge proofs, securing $6.3 million in funding, with Variant and 1kx leading the investment. Additionally, zero-knowledge infrastructure provider Toposware received $5 million in a seed+ round, with Evolution Equity Partners taking the lead.

Tom Couture, a digital asset strategy associate at FundStrat, pointed out the slow integration of AI into decentralized applications due to security concerns. Modulus addresses this issue by efficiently verifying that AI providers do not manipulate their algorithms using zero-knowledge proofs. The aim of Modulus is to ensure the trustworthiness of AI as it becomes more integrated into society.

Apart from Modulus, Vaas, an AI-powered analytics firm, also secured $2 million in pre-seed funding. This means that AI projects accounted for nearly a quarter of the total funds raised during the week.

In addition to AI projects, builders on Coinbase's Base network attracted capital as well. The decentralized derivatives protocol Surf raised $3 million in seed funding to develop its permissionless perpetual decentralized exchange (Perp DEX) on the Ethereum layer 2.

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