Deal Flow – June 2020

According to Brave New Coin research, we have identified 19 companies that raised traditional equity investment in June 2020, all of which have disclosed financial details. These 19 companies raised over US$92M, with the largest raise of US$20.5M being completed by W3BCLOUD.

In May 2020 the total capital raised was just under US$52M, split between 13 companies that disclosed financial details. There were 19 companies that announced successful raises in June. Collectively, companies in June raised US$40M more than companies in May.

In June 2019 there were 28 companies that raised money and disclosed financial details and collectively they raised just over US$311M. This decreased annual variation can be attributed to the slowdown caused by COVID-19.

Fig 1: Investors in June 2020

Dragonfly Capital Partners was the only firm that made three investments in June. Two of these investments were in token sales. Galaxy Digital and IDEO CoLab each made two investments in June. Both of IDEO’s investments were equity investments, while Galaxy Digital made one equity investment and one investment in a token sale.

Crypto specific investors that made one investment include Digital Currency Group, Consensys, Polychain, Castle Island Ventures, Tether, Bitmex, Signum Capital, FPV, OK Group, CoinFund, Placeholder, ParaFi Capital and NGC Ventures. Of this list, the last four only made investments in token sales.

Well known general funds that also made an investment in June include Slow Ventures, A.Capital, Version One Ventures, Uncorrelated Ventures, Tru Ventures, Homebrew, Kindred Ventures, Initialized Capital and Union Square Ventures (USV). The last two only made token investments in June.

A number of these general funds have been very active in the crypto investment space over the past year. Collaborative Fund has made at least one investment in the crypto space every month this year except for May.

There was significantly reduced participation from institutional and corporate investors in April and May, which was expected to occur as a result of COVID. In June there were three large institutional investors that invested and they are Mahindra Group, MUFG and AMD.

Of the 19 companies that disclosed financial details, two raised US$10M and above, raising US$30.5M between them. Seven raised US$5M and above, with US$44.3M raised between them. The remaining ten companies raised US$17.6M.

Eight of the 19 companies are based in the US. Five are based in Europe, and more specifically Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, and the UK. There was also one company based in Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and South Africa.

We have tracked three token sales each month since March, and this trend continued in June. All three were private token sales with participation from venture capitalists. The largest token sale in June was conducted by Avalance, a platform created by AVA Labs. The project raised US$12M in a private token sale led by Initialized Capital with participation from Galaxy Digital, Bitmain, NGC Ventures, and Dragonfly Capital.

Two of the three token sales disclosed financial details and collectively they raised US$15M, with the majority being contributed by Avalance.

Fig 2: Equity and Token Sale Amounts for Different Industries in June 2020

Fig 2 displays the distribution of the disclosed capital raised in equity and token sales over various industries. Companies in the Blockchain segment raised the most with US$33.5M between them. Trading and Investment raised over US$22M between five companies.

The “Other” category raised over US$26M and consisted of companies in five different sectors, Energy, HR, Media, Mining, and Social Media. Of the two token sales that disclosed financial details, they were both in the Blockchain and Financial Services sectors.

This is the first month where we have not recorded any mergers or acquisitions in the crypto space. In May we saw three acquisitions, all three of which were conducted by well-known companies, Zoom, Consensys, and Coinbase.

Thanks for reading, we hope that you’ll find Deal Flow valuable. If we have missed a deal that you know of, let us know. You can access more data and insights from Brave New Coin. Remember to check back next month for the latest edition of Deal Flow.

Equity Capital Raising

US$92.45M was raised in traditional equity offerings in June 2020

02/06/2020 | Synchrolife | US$2,600,000 | Food | Japan

Ginkan, the company that manages restaurant discovery platform SynchroLife which rewards users in cryptocurrency, has raised US$2.6M in a Series A funding round led by local VC firm MTG Ventures. Other investors in the round include Giftee, Orient Corp, Ceres, Sansei Capital Investment, Aucfan DD Holdings Venture Capital, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and SLD Entertainment.

03/06/2020 | Avanti Financial Group | US$5,000,000 | Financial Services| USA

Avanti Financial Group, which expects to serve as a compliant bridge to the US dollar payments system and a custodian of digital assets, has raised a US$5M round from investors including the University of Wyoming Foundation, Digital Currency Group, Blockchain Capital, Lemniscap, and Morgan Creek Digital.

09/06/2020 | Sun Exchange | US$3,000,000 | Energy | South Africa

Sun Exchange, a blockchain-based solar panel micro-leasing marketplace, has closed a US$4M (R67M) investment round, after having raised US$3M (R50M) investment from ARPF, a Mauritian private equity fund.

09/06/2020 | Upvest | US$1,000,000 | Blockchain | Germany

Upvest, an asset tokenisation startup, has received around US$1M (€900K) in funding from the European Regional Development Fund, through the ProFIT program of Investitionsbank Berlin.

09/06/2020 | Hackernoon | US$1,000,000 | Media | USA

Hackernoon, a tech media site, has received US$1M in investment from Coil, a blockchain-based web monetisation platform.

10/06/2020 | Hapramp | US$1,000,000 | Social Media | India

Hampramp, a blockchain-based social media platform, has received US$1M in investment Anand Mahindra the Chairman of the Mahindra Group.

15/06/2020 | Ziglu | US$6,600,000 | Trading & Investment | UK

Ziglu, a new crypto trading platform, has raised US$6.6M (£5.25M) from undisclosed investors.

18/06/2020 | River Financial | US$5,700,000 | Trading & Investment | USA

River Financial, a company building a challenger financial institution and Bitcoin brokerage, has raised a US$5.7M seed round. The round was led by Polychain Capital with participation from Slow Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, DG Daiwa Ventures, Pfeffer Capital Ltd, IDEO CoLab Ventures, Cygni Capital, and a number of angel investors.

22/06/2020 | Celsius Network | US$10,000,000 | DeFi | USA

Tether has invested US$10M for equity in the crypto lending platform Celsius Network at a US$120M pre-money valuation. The company is raising a total of US$30M for equity on BnkToTheFuture, but the round hasn’t closed yet.

22/06/2020 | Pexapark | US$6,750,000 | Energy | Switzerland

Pexapark, a blockchain-based renewable energy platform has raised US$6.75M (EUR 6M) in a Series B round. Investors include BayWa r.e. Energy Ventures, Encavis and RP Global.

23/06/2020 | CrossTower | US$6,000,000 | Trading & Investment | USA

CrossTower, a new digital asset trading platform, has raised US$6M in seed funding, led by Gerard Lopez, founder and CEO of several prominent start-up ventures and tech security companies.

23/06/2020 | Opyn | US$2,000,000 | DeFi | USA

Opyn, an Ethereum based options issuance platform has raised US$2.16M in a round led by Dragonfly Capital. Other investors in Opyn’s latest round included 1kx, A. Capital, Version One Ventures, and Uncorrelated Ventures. Balaji Srinivasan and Robert Leshner also contributed.

23/06/2020 | Sparrow Exchange | US$3,500,000 | Trading & Investment | Singapore

Sparrow, a cryptocurrency options trading platform, announced it has raised US$3.5M in a Series A round. The round was led by the HDR Group, owner and operator of BitMEX, and supported by Signum Capital, Du Capital and FinLab EOS VC.

25/06/2020 | Braintrust | US$6,000,000 | HR | USA

Braintrust, a blockchain-based worker-owned freelance talent marketplace, has publicly launched with US$6M in funding. Investors include True Ventures, Homebrew Ventures, Uprising Ventures, Galaxy Digital, IDEO CoLab, FuturePerfect Ventures, Cambrian Asset Management, Ausum Ventures, Kindred Ventures and Vy Capital.

25/06/2020 | NGRAVE | US$430,000 | Trading & Investment | Belgium

NGRAVE, a digital asset security company has secured over US$430K in investment in a crowdfunding round hosted on Indiegogo.

25/06/2020 | Ternio | US$1,070,000 | Financial Services | USA

Ternio, a blockchain-based fintech platform, has raised US$1.07M in an equity crowdfunding campaign from 3,890 investors on​ Republic.co.

25/06/2020 | W3BCLOUD | US$20,500,000 | Blockchain | Ireland

W3BCLOUD, a joint venture between Advanced Micro Devices and ConsenSys, announced the close of a US$20.5M funding round in convertible notes from Advanced Micro Devices, ConsenSys, and several family offices in the United Arab Emirates.

30/06/2020 | BANXA | US$2,000,000 | Financial Services | Australia

BANXA, a company that offers a fully compliant fiat-to-crypto conversion service, has raised US$2M in a Pre-IPO investment round. The round was led by OK Group.

30/06/2020 | Miner Hut 8 | US$8,300,000 | Mining | Canada

Miner Hut 8, a crypto mining company, has raised US$8.3M from selling a 6% equity stake in the company. The company is listed on the Toronto Securities Exchange

Token Sales

US$15M was raised in token sales in June 2020

03/06/2020 | Numerai | US$3,000,000 | Financial Services | USA

Numerai has sold an additional US$3M in NMR tokens in a private round led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from Placeholder, Coinfund and Dragonfly Capital.

19/06/2020 | Kyber Network | Undisclosed | Blockchain | Singapore

ParaFi Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm has invested in Kyber Network ahead of its planned Katalyst upgrade. The investment from ParaFi was made in the form of an undisclosed direct purchase of Kyber Network Crystals (KNC), the project’s native token.

25/06/2020 | Avalance | US$12,000,000 | Blockchain | USA

Avalanche, AVA Labs project, has raised US$12M in a private token sale led by Initialized Capital and other investors including Galaxy Digital, Bitmain, NGC Ventures and Dragonfly Capital.