Funding Weekly Report | 10 publicly disclosed funding events; Architect Financial Technologies, newly founded by the former president of FTX US, completes $35 million funding round and will launch a n

Highlights of this episode

According to incomplete statistics from PANews, there were 10 investment and financing events in the global blockchain sector last week (December 22-28), with a total funding scale exceeding US$419 million. An overview is as follows:

• In the DeFi sector, two investment and financing events were announced, including the completion of a $2 million seed round for easy.fun, an on-chain trading platform based on Hyperliquid.
• Two investment and financing events were announced in the Web3+AI sector. Among them, decentralized AI video generation platform HPVideo completed a $3 million financing round, led by Helios Prime Capital.
• In the infrastructure & tools sector, one investment and financing event was announced: Coinbax, a programmable trust layer for stablecoin payments, completed a $4.2 million seed round.
• Two investment and financing events were announced in the centralized finance sector, including a $350 million financing round for digital bank Erebor, led by Lux Capital.
• In the area of other Web3 applications, three investment and financing events were announced, including a $20 million funding round for the Web3.0 social platform Crypto Life.

DeFi

easy.fun, an on-chain trading platform based on Hyperliquid, has raised $2 million in seed funding.

On-chain trading competition platform easy.fun announced the completion of a $2 million seed funding round led by Mirana Ventures. The funds will be used for product development, team expansion, and the upcoming global official trading tournament. Built on Hyperliquid, easy.fun focuses on creating an open, fair, and transparent on-chain competitive environment through gamification mechanics, aiming to transform trading into a skill-based competitive experience that is playable, learnable, and winable.

Otomato, the automated transaction protocol for the Hyperliquid ecosystem, has completed a $2 million strategic funding round.

Otomato Protocol, the automated trading protocol within the Hyperliquid ecosystem, announced the completion of a $2 million strategic funding round. The investor is a UK-based deep tech company, whose name has not yet been disclosed. The new funding will support Otomato in launching its autonomous agent service, allowing users without coding expertise to create agents to execute and manage on-chain and off-chain transaction tasks.

AI

Decentralized AI video generation platform HPVideo raises $3 million in funding, led by Helios Prime Capital.

HPVideo, a wallet-based AI video generation platform, announced the completion of a $3 million strategic funding round led by Helios Prime Capital. Based on the BNB Chain, HPVideo supports wallet login and multi-model AI video generation, emphasizing a low-cost video creation solution that requires no email registration or personal information. The funds will be used for product development, infrastructure expansion, and ecosystem building.

HodlHer, an injective ecosystem platform, has raised $1.5 million in funding to develop an AI-driven Web3 operating system.

HodlHer announced the completion of a $1.5 million strategic funding round, with investors including Chain Capital, Bitrise Capital, and CGV. HodlHer is the first AI-powered Web3 operating system driven by intelligent agents, developed based on the L1 project Injective. Its core technology, "HodlOS," integrates emotion perception, long-term memory, and decentralized execution capabilities, aiming to provide users with a unified experience from information interaction to on-chain operations.

Currently, HodlHer has launched the emotion trading assistant "Sola" and plans to accelerate the development of the multi-agent assistant system "Super InternX" and the decentralized intelligent agent market "Agent Market," supporting users to create and trade personalized AI agents. HodlHer's long-term vision is to become the core operating system of the "personality economy" in the Web3 era, promoting the collaborative symbiosis between humans and AI agents.

Infrastructure & Tools

Coinbax, a programmable trust layer for stablecoin payments, has raised $4.2 million in seed funding.

Coinbax, a programmable trust layer for stablecoin payments, has raised $4.2 million in seed funding to bring custody, strategy execution, and programmable settlement capabilities to digital assets. The round was led by BankTech Ventures, with participation from Connecticut Innovations, Paxos, SpringTime Ventures, and companies from the banking, payments, and digital asset infrastructure sectors.

Centralized Finance

Thiel-backed digital bank Erebor has raised $350 million, doubling its valuation to $4.35 billion.

Erebor, a digital bank backed by Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel and Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey, has raised $350 million in funding, led by Lux Capital, with participation from existing investors Founders Fund, 8VC, and Haun Ventures. Its latest valuation is $4.35 billion. Positioned as a new type of bank serving crypto and technology clients, Erebor recently received FDIC deposit insurance approval and obtained a preliminary banking license, with a planned launch in 2026.

Architect Financial Technologies, founded by the former president of FTX US, has raised $35 million in funding and will launch a new exchange, AX.

Former FTX US president Brett Harrison has completed a $35 million funding round for his newly founded fintech company, Architect Financial Technologies, valuing the company at approximately $187 million. The company's exchange, AX, focuses on trading perpetual contracts for traditional assets, including stocks and forex, rather than cryptocurrency perpetual contracts. The AX platform is regulated in Bermuda and is only open to non-US institutional investors because perpetual futures products are not currently approved in the United States.

DAT

Nasdaq-listed iPower reaches $30 million convertible note financing agreement to launch DAT strategy.

Nasdaq-listed e-commerce and supply chain platform iPower announced a $30 million convertible note financing agreement to launch its Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) strategy. The company disclosed that the initial $9 million of this financing will be used, with $4.4 million intended for purchasing Bitcoin and Ethereum. The remaining funds will be used to increase working capital and bolster the balance sheet, and 80% of subsequent funding will be used for continued acquisitions of digital assets. Previously, iPower announced in June that it was shifting its strategy towards crypto finance and blockchain infrastructure services.

other

Web3 Social:

Web3.0 social platform Crypto Life has raised $20 million in funding, aiming to reshape data sovereignty and the distribution of social value.

Crypto Life, a next-generation decentralized social ecosystem, announced the completion of a $20 million institutional funding round. This round was led by Bluemount Foundation, VEGA-Ventures, Infinite Alliance, ChainPulse Capital, UZ Capital, and other investment institutions. Crypto Life aims to build a global, decentralized social network centered on user privacy using blockchain technology, breaking the monopoly and control of user data by traditional social media giants and reshaping the social trust system and value distribution model.

Predicting the market:

Prediction market aggregator Rocket has completed a 1.5 million RMB pre-seed funding round, led by Electric Capital.

Prediction market aggregator Rocket announced the completion of a $1.5 million pre-seed funding round, led by Electric Capital, with participation from VCs including Jsquare, bodhi ventures, Tangent, and Amber Group.

Rocket is the first prediction market to distribute profits continuously based on the correctness of predictions. It features a non-binary betting structure, no liquidation mechanism, and a fully open profit cap at the protocol level. Users can reuse the same capital to deploy across multiple predictions in parallel.

Coinbase will acquire prediction market startup The Clearing Company, with the transaction expected to close in January.

Coinbase has reached an agreement to acquire prediction market startup The Clearing Company. Coinbase stated that the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in January. The Clearing Company was founded earlier this year by Toni Gemayel, who previously served as head of growth at Polymarket and Kalshi. The startup completed a $15 million seed funding round in August, with investors including Coinbase Ventures, and aims to build an on-chain, regulated prediction market platform.

Investment institutions

HashKey Capital's fourth fund completes $250 million in initial funding round.

HashKey Capital announced that its fourth multi-strategy fund, Fund IV, has completed its initial funding round, raising a total of $250 million, exceeding expectations. The fund's ultimate asset management target is $500 million. The fund will invest in global blockchain infrastructure and large-scale application projects, with strategies covering both primary and secondary markets. The general partner of the fourth fund is HashKey Capital Investment (a subsidiary of HashKey Capital). HashKey Capital currently manages over $1 billion in client assets, and its first fund achieved a return of over 10x DPI.