Deal Flow – May 2019

In April, approximately 47 companies raised just over $368M in traditional capital, with 55% of this amount ($200M) raised by just one company. The parent company of the crypto exchange, Bithumb, received $200M in funding from Japan’s ST Blockchain Fund. This is the largest amount raised by an individual company in the year to date. Following the large Bithumb deal, a further $168M was raised by 46 companies, with thirteen of those companies not disclosing the financial details of their deals. April’s total of 47 deals is a significant increase over the 29 deals completed in March. The total amount raised was also greater. April was the best month of the year so far, in both the number of completed raises and the total amount raised.

In April, Digital Currency Group made four investments, Pantera Capital made three investments and SBI Holdings made two investments. Another notable investor in April was Samsung, who invested in the crypto hardware company, Ledger. Of the 34 deals that disclosed financial details, only six deals raised over $10M. The average amount raised of the remaining deals was $4M, indicating that a large proportion of the disclosed deals were seed rounds.

As predicted there was an increase in IEOs in April. Techemy Advisory recorded the larger raises and the IEOs held on recognizable exchanges. There were nine token sales in April that raised just over $100M. Six of these were IEOs. The largest token sale raise in April was Gate.io who raised $64M in an IEO on the Gate.io exchange. This is the largest IEO that we have recorded to date. Most IEOs have been around $5–7M.

Equity and token sale amounts for different industries, April 2019

The graph above displays the distribution of the disclosed capital raised over various industries. As seen over the last quarter the Trading and Investment sector leads the way and in April it raised just under $79M, after discounting the $200M raised by Bithumb. Approximately 90% of the Trading and Investment raises this month were completed via token sales, with Gate.io raising $64M in IEO. Approximately half of the companies in the Blockchain sector raised via token sales, with Celo raising $25M in a private sale.

We recorded three security token offerings in April, amounting to just under $25M, with the Provenance STO raising $20M. 20|30 conducted their STO on a platform owned by the London Stock Exchange, raising $3.9M.

Ten companies were acquired in April, one less than March. The biggest name involved in an acquisition this month was Bakkt, who acquired Digital Asset Custody Company, a crypto asset custodian for institutions. Hu-manity, a company focused on providing consumers with the power to control and monetize their data, acquired Betterpath, a company that works on behalf of patients to search, find, and improve healthcare data. Four of the ten acquisitions involved cryptocurrency and securities exchanges.

Thank you for reading, we hope that you find Deal Flow valuable. If we have missed a deal that you know of, please let us know. You can access more data and insights from Brave New Coin. Feel free to share or signup to our newsletter for more insights. See you next month for the next Deal Flow.

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Equity capital raising

Over $360M was raised via traditional equity offerings in April 2019.

01/04/2019 | VELIC | Undisclosed | Trading and Investment

VELIC, a Singapore based digital asset platform, has raised investment from B Dash Ventures.

02/04/2019 | Cambridge Blockchain | Undisclosed | Identity

Cambridge Blockchain, a digital identity enterprise software provider, has announced that PayPal has joined its Series A funding round. The funding is an extension of Cambridge Blockchain’s Series A funding round, which includes new investments from Omidyar Network and Flourish, a venture of The Omidyar Group. Previous Series A investors include Foxconn’s HCM Capital, Partech Partners, Future Perfect Ventures and Digital Currency Group.

02/04/2019 | Lucid Sight | $6,000,000 | Gaming

Lucid Sight, a blockchain game developer, has raised $6M to expand its digital scarcity-powered games to traditional game platforms. Leading investment bank and wealth management firm Salem Partners participated in the new funding round, as did crypto and blockchain venture capital funds Digital Currency Group and the Galaxy EOS VC Fund.

03/04/2019 | Liquid |Undisclosed | Trading and Investment

Global cryptocurrency platform Liquid.com announced the first close of an ongoing Series C funding that puts the company valuation at over US$1 billion. This latest round of funding is led by investment firm IDG Capital, with participation from Bitmain Technologies.

03/04/2019| Offchain Labs | $3,700,000 | Blockchain

Offchain Labs, a startup building a new smart contract privacy and scaling layer called Arbitrum, raised a $3.7M seed round led by Pantera Capital. The funding will be used to grow the team of developers building Arbitrum.

03/04/ | HealthVerity | $25,000,000 | Health

HealthVerity, a foundation for the rapid creation, exchange, and management of healthcare and consumer data, closed a $25M Series C funding round led by existing investor Foresite Capital with participation from Flare Capital Partners, Greycroft Partners, and other existing investors. The new capital will support continued growth and investment in HealthVerity’s technology platform and go-to-market activities.

04/04/2019 | Blockskye | Undisclosed | Travel

Airlines Reporting Corp. (ARC) announced an investment in Blockskye, a travel industry-focused blockchain solution developer. The Series A investment marks ARC’s first significant round of venture capital financing.

04/04/2019 | GEO Protocol | Undisclosed | Financial Service

GEO Protocol, a financial technology startup, announced an investment in its seed round by CoinFund, a New York-based crypto asset investment firm. The deal follows three years of aggressive self-funded development of the project’s technology.

04/04/2019 | Trusted Key | Undisclosed | Identity

Trusted Key, a startup that offers decentralized digital identity solutions, raised an undisclosed sum from Okta Ventures Fund.

04/04/2019 | MineHub Technologies | $190,000 | Mining

MineHub Technologies, an emerging technology company leveraging technologies, including blockchain, to develop a new generation of cost-saving applications, raised $190k (CAD$200k), from Block X Capital. The MineHub platform manages high-value assets from the mine to the end buyers across the mining and metals supply chain.

04/04/2019 | O(1) Labs | $15,000,000 | Blockchain

Coda protocol, the first project of the startup O(1) Labs, raised $15M from Accomplice, Coinbase Ventures, Paradigm, and General Catalyst. With Coda, O(1) Labs is building a blockchain that allows every user to participate in consensus.

04/04/2019 | Acre Software | $6,500,000 | Financial Service

Acre Software, a UK startup developing a mortgage and insurance application process for advisers using blockchain technology, has raised $6.5M (£5M) from Aviva and Sesame Bankhall Group.

08/04/2019 | Sparkswap | $3,500,000 | Trading and Investment

Sparkswap, a San Francisco-based decentralized exchange, is the first North American exchange to fully integrate the Lightning Sparkswap network. They have raised a $3.5M seed round led by Initialized Capital, with involvement from venture capital firms such as Pantera Capital and Foundation Capital.

08/04/2019 | Next Big Thing | $13,500,000 | Internet of Things

Next Big Thing AG (NBT), a Berlin-based IoT and Blockchain Company Builder, has raised $13.5M (€12M) in a series A round led by Industrial insurer HDI.

08/04/2019 | Veratrak | $1,300,000 | Health

Veratrak, a London-based startup attempting to digitize the pharmaceutical supply chain, has raised $1.3M (£1M) in seed funding. The round was led by Force Over Mass, with participation from Seedcamp, Ascension Ventures, Blockchain Valley Ventures and TrueSight Ventures. A number of individual investors have also backed the company.

09/04/2019 | Bilaxy | Undisclosed | Trading and Investment

Bilaxy raised an undisclosed strategic investment from LD Capital, BTC12 Capital, ZMT Capital, and Origin Capital.

10/04/2019 | Moonlighting | $5,000,000 | Marketplace

Moonlighting, a marketplace for freelance professionals, raised a $5M funding round led by the FinLab EOS VC fund, a joint venture of FinLab AG and Block.one. The investment will be used to grow its user base and integrate EOS with its existing structure.

10/04/2019 | Robot Ventures | Undisclosed | Investment

Robot Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm has raised money from Bain Capital Ventures, Ripple Xpring, and “fintech-obsessed” angel investors.

11/04/2019 | Flexa | $14,100,000 | Financial Service

Flexa, a payment network uniting retail and blockchain technologies, announced that it has raised $14.1M in funding, led by Pantera Capital, 1kx, Nima Capital, Access Ventures, and other strategic partners.

11/04/2019 | Horizen Labs | $4,000,000 | Blockchain

Horizen Labs, a tech firm that helps businesses build distributed ledger platforms, and intends to develop sidechain-as-a-service products, raised $4M in funding. Horizen Labs aimed to raise $2M in seed funding, but exceeded its goal and received $4M from Digital Currency Group, seed-stage fund Liberty City Ventures, and other independent investors.

11/04/2019 | Monetizr | $520,000 | Gaming

Monetizr, a San Francisco based company that enables game publishers to increase and diversify their income, raised $520k in funding from Alfabeat Venture Fund.

11/04/2019 | Path Network | $1,000,000 | Security

Path Network raised in excess of $1M of seed funding, in order to increase capacity for mitigation services globally and to expand into the European and APAC regions. This seed round is a precursor to a Series A capital raise planned for Q3 of 2019.

11/04/2019 | WISeCoin | $7,000,000 | Blockchain

WISeCoin, raised $7M in a pre-security token offering round. WISeCoin aims to launch its STO by Q2 of this year. The blockchain company is targeting a raise of around $17.6M with the STO; however, this amount is not final yet. WISeCoin is the blockchain subsidiary of the Swiss cybersecurity company WISeKey.

15/04/2019 | Bithumb | $200,000,000 | Trading & Investing

The parent company of Bithumb, a major South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, has received $200M in funding from Japan’s ST Blockchain Fund.

15/04/2019 | FXCoin | Undisclosed | Trading & Investing

FXCoin, a Japanese crypto startup, has completed a third-party allotment of shares with SBI Holdings. The development contributes to FXCoin’s target of launching a crypto exchange in Japan. FXCoin focuses on providing market information for investors.

16/04/2019 | Chainalysis | $6,000,000 | Enterprise Solutions

Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency compliance startup based in New York, has raised $6M in funding from Japanese financial group Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc and venture capital firm Sozo Ventures.

17/04/2019 | Bolt Labs | $1,500,000 | Blockchain

Bolt Labs, a startup named after the BOLT protocol that aims to give lightning hubs shielded addresses for anonymous payment channels, has launched with a $1.5M seed round led by Dekrypt Capital with support from Ripple’s investment arm, Xpring, Lemniscap, and Access Ventures.

17/04/2019 | Centbee | $1,300,000 | Trading & Investing

Centbee, a South African-based Bitcoin company, announced that it has closed its Series A round with entrepreneur Calvin Ayre, founder of Antigua-based investment firm, Ayre Ventures and CoinGeek. Ayre invested $1.3M (£1M).

17/04/2019 | KZen | $4,000,000 | Cryptocurrency

KZen, an Israeli cryptocurrency developer building a smartphone wallet app, raised $4M from backers including Samsung, Elron, and Benson Oak Ventures.

18/04/2019 | Prime Trust | Undisclosed | Cryptocurrency

OKCoin, a cryptocurrency exchange, has invested an undisclosed sum in Prime Trust, a crypto asset custody provider.

19/04/2019 | Utop | $3,000,000 | Enterprise Solutions

FPT Corporation and SBI Holdings have signed a memorandum of understanding to invest $3M into joint venture Utop, a Vietnamese start-up that bridges loyalty point programmes among merchants.

22/04/2019 | Artory | $7,300,000 | Art

Blockchain-baser art registry, Artory, raised $7.3M in Series A funding from 2020 Ventures, Hasso Plattner Capital, and several private equity firms.

22/04/2019 | DRIVE Markets | Undisclosed | Trading & Investing

DRIVE Markets, an institutional crypto and fiat exchange, raised funding from entrepreneur Calvin Ayre, founder of Ayre Group and CoinGeek.

22/04/2019 | Unitopia | $5,000,000 | Gaming

Unitopia, the blockchain research arm of Chinese game developer Electronic Soul, received a strategic investment of $5M from Shuimu Fenghua Fund, Link Hui Capital, Jun Joint Venture, Digital Chain Capital, and Super Brain Fund.

23/04/2019 | Alt Thirty Six | $10,000,000 | Financial Service

Alt Thirty Six, a digital payment and compliance platform built to help the cannabis industry go cashless, raised $10M in a Series A round to help accelerate company growth and enhance development capabilities. The round was led by a private equity firm.

23/04/2019 | SOMA | $1,230,000 | E-commerce

SOMA, a blockchain-based software startup that integrates social interactions, e-commerce, and the tracking and authentication of items, successfully closed a $1.23M (€1.1M) bridge funding round. It includes substantial investment from the Finnish Government as well as private angel investors.

24/04/2019 | New Internet Labs | $500,000 | Blockchain

New Internet Labs Limited, one of the earliest open-source contributors to Blockstack, raised $500k from Blockstack.

24/04/2019 | Uniswap | Undisclosed | Trading and Investment

Uniswap, a decentralized exchange protocol, raised funding from crypto hedge fund Paradigm.

25/04/2019 | Biki.com | $5,000,000 | Trading and Investment

Biki.com, a fast-growing new exchange headquartered in Singapore, received $5M as a personal strategic investment from Jun Du, the Huobi Co-Founder and current CEO of Node Capital and Jinse.

25/04/2019 | Guesser | $1,100,000 | Prediction Markets

Guesser closed a $1.1M seed round to fuel the growth of their prediction markets platform. The investment was raised from Version One, Compound and Boost VC. Boost’s investment also represents the first-ever venture capital deal done using DAI.

25/04/2019 | Ledger | $2,900,000 | Cryptocurrency

Samsung invested $2.9M (2.6M euros) into Ledger, the crypto hardware wallet startup. This investment gives Ledger a valuation of roughly $290M.

25/04/2019 | MakersPlace | $2,000,000 | Art

MakersPlace, a startup with an easy-to-use blockchain platform for digital creators, raised $2M in seed financing. The funding was led by Uncork Capital with participation from Draper Dragon Fund, Abstract Ventures, and a number of high-profile angel investors.

29/04/2019 | Experimental | $500,000 | Gaming

Experimental, a blockchain gaming studio based in Argentina, successfully completed its seed round, raising over $500k from high profile angel investors, and Argentina’s government-backed venture capital firm YAVU, among others.

29/04/2019 | Phishfort | Undisclosed | Security

Phishfort, a tool that protects high-risk companies, such as crypto exchanges and token platforms from phishing attacks and scams, raised an undisclosed sum from Binance Labs.

29/04/2019 | Truffle | $3,000,000 | Blockchain

Truffle Blockchain Group, a spin-off from Ethereum incubator ConsenSys, and maker of the most widely used Ethereum developer tools raised $3M to expand into enterprise-grade solutions.

30/04/2019 | Digital Assets Data | $6,000,000 | Financial Service

Digital Assets Data, a crypto-focused FinTech, and data firm, launched after raising $6M from industry backers such as Digital Currency Group, Morgan Creek Digital Assets, and contributions from Distributed Global, Galaxy Digital, CMT Digital and Ritholtz Wealth Management CEO Joshua Brown, among others.

30/04/2019 | Editional | $1,500,000 | Gaming

Editional is a New York startup founded by a group of Facebook veterans. It launched a mobile app powered by ether, that supports the creation and trading of unique digital collectibles. Editional raised a $1.5M seed round with backing from ConsenSys Ventures, Digital Currency Group, and CoinFund.

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Token Offerings

Over $100M was raised across various token offerings in April 2019.

01/04/2019 | DEXON | $3,000,000 | Blockchain

The DEXON public sale sold 15 million DXN in 5 days raising the hard cap of $3M on the Cobinhood platform.

02/04/2019 | Harmony | $18,000,000 | Blockchain

Harmony announced that it raised $18M in a token presale from Hong Kong’s Lemniscap VC, Australia’s BCA Fund, Singapore’s UniValues Associates, and Silicon Valley’s Consensus Capital, among others.

03/04/2019 | Veriblock | $7,000,000 | Blockchain

Veriblock IEO hosted on Bittrex sold out in 10.4 seconds, raising $7M.

03/04/2019 | Celo | $25,000,000 | Blockchain

Celo is a decentralized Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol, with a mobile-friendly, ultralight client experience allowing anyone to securely send stable-value digital assets to any phone number, anywhere. Celo raised over $25M in a private token sale of Celo Gold. Polychain Capital purchased $10M of Celo Golda, and a16z crypto purchased $15M of Celo Gold. Additional Celo Gold purchases came from institutions from the Americas, EMEA, and Asia, during a recently closed round.

04/04/2019 | MultiVAC | $4,200,000 | Blockchain

MultiVAC conducted its IEO on KuCoin Spotlight, becoming the first company to do so and raising a total of $4.2M. The first round raised $3.6M, selling 600M tokens. This was followed by a second round that raised $600k, selling 100M tokens.

17/04/2019 | Gate.io | $64,000,000 | Trading & Investing

Crypto exchange Gate.io raised $64M in seven days for its own exchange cryptocurrency. Gate.io claimed that it was heavily oversubscribed with orders totaling $2.99B for the so-called Gate Points.

23/04/2019 | Bitsdaq | $5,000,000 | Trading & Investing

Bitsdaq, Bittrex’s exchange partner in Macau, Singapore, and Canada, raised $5M in a private sale initial exchange offering of its platform token, BQQQ, on its platform.

24/04/2019 | Matic Network | $5,000,000 | Blockchain

Binance hosted the Matic Network IEO. It raised $5M by selling 10B tokens.

29/04/2019 | Roobee | $1,000,000 | Trading and Investment

Roobee, a Blockchain-Based investment service closed its first IEO private round with $1M (200BTC) invested by a private investor.

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Security Token Offerings

$25M was raised across three security token offerings in April 2019.

10/04/2019 | Provenance | $20,000,000 | Blockchain

Provenance Blockchain, the administrator for the Provenance.io blockchain, completed a $20M security token offering to support the continued development and expansion of the Provenance.io ecosystem. The STO included broad participation from both blockchain and traditional technology investors.

15/04/2019 | 20|30 | $3,900,000 | Venture Studio

2030.io, a United Kingdom-based blockchain startup, raised $3.9M (3M GBP) through a platform owned by the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The startup secured the funding by selling tokenized shares on the LSE-owned equity trading platform Turquoise.

15/04/2019 | PopCom | $1,070,000 | Retail

PopCom is an automated retail technology company building a SaaS and IoT platform for vending machines to provide consumer insights and engagement for machine operators. It raised $1.07M from more than 2,117 investors with an oversubscribed waitlist. It is the first project to raise funding via crowdfunded STO.

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Mergers and Acquisitions

10 acquisitions of blockchain/cryptocurrency related companies were made in April 2019.

03/04/2019 | WEG Bank AG | Undisclosed

Nimiq acquired a 9.9% stake in German WEG Bank AG. This acquisition solidifies the strategic partnership between Nimiq and WEG Bank on Nimiq OASIS, a crypto-to-fiat bridge.

03/04/2019 | Tarmin | Undisclosed

Switzerland-based blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT) and cybersecurity firm WISeKey acquired a 22% interest in American data infrastructure firm Tarmin through a multi-million USD transaction. The exact amount was not specified.

04/04/2019 | Daplie | Undisclosed

ClearFoundation acquired Daplie in order to integrate both companies’ core competencies into one product line. ClearFoundation will release physical and digital home security and personal data storage product lines.

08/04/2019 | Blockchain Innovations | $2,250,000

Graph Blockchain entered into a binding letter of intent in connection with the acquisition of all issued and outstanding common shares in the capital of Blockchain Innovations (BIC) and its wholly-owned subsidiary The Games Company, for $2.25M (CAD$3M). BIC is a leading international supplier of blockchain technology for the sports, casino and payments industries.

09/04/2019 | Securter | Undisclosed

Digatrade, a FinTech company that operates an OTC crypto asset trade desk for institutions, acquired Securter. Securter is developing a patent-pending credit card payment platform as part of its goal to become a FinTech innovation-driven company.

12/04/2019 | Skytree | Undisclosed

Blockchain game developer Animoca Brands has initiated the acquisition of a 75% stake in Skytree, a Hong Kong-based mobile games developer.

29/04/2019 | Digital Asset Custody Company | Undisclosed

Bakkt аcquired the Digital Asset Custody Company (DACC), a crypto custodian service.

29/04/2019 | eXeBlock Technology | Undisclosed

The Peerplays Blockchain Standards Association (PBSA) completed the acquisition of a suite of software that will power use cases and growth on the Peerplays blockchain. The acquisition includes the purchase of 5050Labs/Sweeps, Bitcoin sidechain, and eXeChain software from eXeBlock Technology Corporation.

30/04/2019 | Betterpath | Undisclosed

Hu-manity.co, the company bringing individuals and corporations into a consumer-inclusive data economy, acquired Betterpath; a New York company creating technology to assist patients to search, find and improve healthcare data.

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Editorial Disclosure: A version of this article orginally appeared on Techemy Advisory’s Medium blog. Author Nawaz Ahmed is the Product and Marketing Manager at Techemy Advisory. Brave New Coin’s parent company, Techemy Limited, is a shareholder in Techemy Advisory.

Disclaimer: Deal Flow is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide commercial, financial or legal advice. Nothing in this article constitutes an offer of securities or regulated financial products or financial services to any person.