James Cirrone

A handful of crypto startups announced fundraises of $17.4 million this week, with some venture capital and grant program activity sprinkled in the mix.



Nomura was key in the $6 million raise by on-chain fund platform Solv Protocol. The Japanese banking giant’s crypto arm Laser Digital — <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/nomura-laser-digital-dubai-license">a firm that scored a Dubai crypto license this week</a> — participated in Solv’s round along with UOB Venture Management, Mirana Ventures, Emirates Consortium, Matrix Partners and others.



Solv v3 is a decentralized liquidity infrastructure that enables organizations to raise money through the creation of financial instruments. People are incentivized to kick in money with the opportunity to profit on higher yields. 



Solv v3 has over $160 million in assets under management across 66 fund pools, according to the Solv <a href="https://app.solv.finance/earn">website</a>. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Payment ramps, zero-knowledge tech</h2>



Fiat and crypto payments platform Orbital secured 5 million Australian dollars (roughly $6.35 million) in its first institutional capital raise. The venture round was led by Golden Record Ventures with participation from New Form Capital, GSRV, Psalion and Luminous Futures.



Orbital chiefly serves businesses and operates as a fiat off-ramp for crypto payments from its customers. Its products also “integrate stablecoins, as well as other major cryptocurrencies and traditional currencies, into existing payment flows,” according to a <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/orbital-raises-5m-to-help-enterprises-realise-the-potential-of-blockchain-payments-301892109.html">press release</a>.



Orbital intends to use the fresh capital to grow its business and develop products. The company says it has over 80 clients that process $250 million of value every month.



Separately, zkPass raised $2.5 million in a seed round. The project was incubated by <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/binance-labs">Binance Labs</a>, who was also an investor in the round. Other backers include Sequoia China, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/okx">OKX Ventures</a>, dao5 and Cypher Capital, among others.&nbsp;



zkPass’s development efforts focus on zero-knowledge proofs, multi-party computation and three-party transport layer security, according to its <a href="https://zkpass.org/home#about">website</a>. The fresh funding will go toward building the zkPass pre-alpha test net, which has 190,000 people on the waiting list, according to <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/234384/binance-labs-sequoia-china-2-5-million-funding-into-zkpass?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social">The Block</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Other notable fundraises</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>DeFi protocol Conic Finance <a href="https://medium.com/@ConicFinance/conic-raises-1m-f88ad30460fd">raised</a> $1 million from Curve founder Michael Egorov and secured a valuation of $17 million.</li>



<li>D8X, an institutional decentralized exchange for derivatives on <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/polygon">Polygon’s</a> zkEVM, closed a $1.5 million pre-seed round. Polygon Ventures was among the investors.&nbsp;</li>



<li>The co-founders of Futureverse, a company focused on metaverse apps, just <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/co-founders-of-futureverse-launch-50-million-fund-and-venture-studio-born-ready-301892783.html">launched</a> a new $50 million venture fund and studio. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/investment-firms-dominate-week">Futureverse raised $54 million last month</a>.</li>



<li>After <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/monad-labs-closes-19m-seed-funding-round-led-by-dragonfly-capital-301746016.html">completing</a> a $19 million seed round in February, Monad Labs is <a href="https://www.monad.xyz/developer-grant">launching</a> a grant program for developers.</li>
</ul>



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crypto startup

Crypto funding: Decentralization, privacy at forefront of a $17M week

Shalini Nagarajan

<div id="highlights-block_630f30b53f339" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The World Intellectual Property Organization said the disputed name is simply an abbreviation of the crypto firm’s service</li>
 <li>Still, privacy-focused crypto startup DKYC is now rebranding its website to “ShadowFi” </li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Crypto startup Don’t Know Your Customer has managed to avoid a cybersquatting complaint put forth by accounting giant Deloitte over its domain name.



Deloitte offers a service for Know-Your-Customer operations called <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/lu/en/pages/financial-advisory/solutions/deloitte-kyc.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DKYC</a>, which involves due diligence via document collection. 



But the mega-firm took issue with web design firm Penultimate Media Systems registering a version of that name as <a href="https://dontkyc.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">dontkyc.com</a> for its crypto client — a startup offering prepaid cards pitched as a way to spend certain Binance Chain tokens in the real-world without having to disclose personal information.



A recent <a href="https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/pdf/2022/d2022-1775.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">decision</a> by the World Intellectual Property Organization, shared by <a href="https://domainnamewire.com/2022/08/30/crypto-company-defeats-deloitte-in-cybersquatting-dispute/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Domain Name Wire</a>, showed Deloitte failed to establish that the disputed name was used by the crypto firm illicitly, highlighting that the domain name is not dkyc.com, but dontkyc.com.



The issue for Deloitte was that the domain name is “highly similar” to its trademark and that the crypto firm offered financial services under its identical “DKYC” sign, according to the document. It also noted the crypto firm does not identify as an active company or provide a valid postal address on its website.



Deloitte argued that the crypto startup had made multiple references with fraudulent intentions to “DKYC,” but not using “dontkyc” — which is reflected in the disputed domain name.&nbsp;



The domain owner was accommodating in turn, saying it’s ready to modify branding and change references to “DKYC” if that would help the case. It claimed to have searched the US Patent and Trademark Office for the disputed domain name prior to registration with no results. It later learned DKYC was registered in other territories.



The <a href="https://dontkyc.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">website</a>, as of Wednesday, showed DKYC is rebranding to “ShadowFi.&#8221; The startup describes itself as a small community-based non-profit token operating on the Binance Smart Chain, promising an absence of KYC measures in order to ensure privacy. “Our vendor doesn’t know who we are, and we don’t know who you are. No ID required. Ever,” states its website.



WIPO’s sole panelist Adam Taylor said Deloitte still has the option to take the crypto firm to court for infringement of intellectual property rights, if it believes there is sufficient ground to do so.



Representatives for Deloitte, DKYC and Penultimate Media didn’t return Blockworks’ request for comment by press time.



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