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Deal Flow – September 2019

Deal Flow – September 2019

Welcome to Deal Flow, a monthly report on investment in the blockchain space. Deal Flow provides a comprehensive listing of new capital raises, mergers and acquisitions, ICOs, IEOs, and STOs. Deal Flow identifies industry trends and follows the money with expert analysis and commentary - providing essential market intelligence for professional crypto investors.

According to our research, approximately thirty companies raised traditional equity investment in August 2019, and fourteen of them disclosed financial details of their raises. These fourteen companies raised over $81.3M. The largest raise ($18.3M) was conducted by BlockFi. August saw twenty-three fewer companies than July (53) raise capital and consequently, fewer companies in August disclosed the financial details of their deals. The amount of capital raised and the number of companies announcing raises in August is the lowest since May.

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Fig 1: Investors in August 2019

A range of notable blockchain and cryptocurrency investors made investments in August as seen in Fig 1 above. Fenbushi Capital made four investments, three of which were in the Trading and Investment sector. NGC made three investments, while gumi Cryptos, Galaxy Digital and Hashkey Capital both made two investments each. Other major crypto and blockchain funds that made at least one investment in August were Coinbase, Morgan Creek, Consensys and Polychain Capital. There were a few traditional firms that made active investments in August and these include New Zealand’s ASB Bank, Korea’s Shinhan Bank and Korea Exchange Bank, Monex Group, Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, Dubai’s Hayaat Group, and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala.

BlockFi raised $18.3M, the largest raise in August. BlockFi is a wealth management solution for crypto investors. Its Series A round was led by Valar Ventures with participation from Winklevoss Capital, Galaxy Digital, ConsenSys Ventures, Akuna Capital, Avon Ventures, Susquehanna, CMT Digital, Morgan Creek, and PJC. Of the fourteen companies that disclosed financial details, four raised over $10M and between them, they raised $50.3M. The remaining ten companies raised $31M and had an average raise of $3.1M. Seven of the fourteen companies are from the USA, while the remainder are from seven different countries. 50% of the companies that disclosed financial details raised pre-seed and seed rounds, the remainder raised pre-series A and above rounds.

There were six IEOs conducted in August, two on OKEx, and one each on Huobi, KuCoin, Liquid, and Binance. The largest token sale that we recorded was the Perlin IEO on Binance which raised $6.7M by selling 86.5M tokens through a lottery. One IEO did not disclose the raise amount, so of the five that did, the average raise amount was $3.3M.

Logo Equity and Token Sale Amounts (4)

Fig 2: Equity and Token Sale Amounts for Different Industries in August 2019

The graph above displays the distribution of the disclosed capital raised in equity and token sales over various industries. From the graph, we can see that companies in the Trading and Investment sector have raised $26.5M which was the most raised by a sector in August. There were no equity raises conducted by companies in the Blockchain sector, which is a first for this year. There were two IEOs by companies in the blockchain sector that raised just under $10M. Enterprise Solutions, Financial Services and Other sectors all raised slightly under $20M. The Financial Services sector raised a total of $18.8M, of which $18.3M was BlockFi. The Other category consisted of five companies from the Healthcare, Identity, Staking and Mining sectors.

We did not record a single STO in August. March was the last month when no STOs were recorded. We recorded two acquisitions, of which one disclosed financial details. Coinbase, one of the most active in this space, acquired the Institutional Custody Business of Xapo, pioneers in Bitcoin storage and custody, for $55M. This acquisition makes Coinbase the largest institutional custodian for crypto assets in the world. The second acquisition was by Cryptix AG, a Swiss full-service provider in the blockchain industry, which acquired Blocktrade, a Liechtenstein digital assets exchange. Both acquiree companies are in the Trading and Investment sectors.

Algo Capital announced a $200M fund to invest in companies building on the Algorand blockchain platform. The new fund is backed by a range of experienced financial and blockchain industry investors across the world, including Brainchild, NGC Ventures, Arrington XRP Capital, Eterna Capital, GSR, Cognitive Blockchain, Rokk3r Inc, Wibson, 11–11 Ventures, DG Ventures, Winslow Strong, Invermaster, and many others.

Thanks for reading, we hope that you 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. See you next month for Deal Flow.


Equity Capital Raising

Over $81.3M was raised in traditional equity offerings in August 2019.

01/08/2019 | Loyyal | Undisclosed | Loyalty | USA

Loyyal, a company using blockchain technologies for loyalty and incentive programs, has received investments from Unblock Ventures Limited — LINE Corporation’s blockchain investment company, Recruit Co., Ltd., and Monex Group, Inc. Also participating in this round is one of Loyyal’s original Series Seed investors, Dubai-based Hayaat Group.

05/08/2019 | AlphaWallet | $1,200,000 |Trading & Investment | Australia

AlphaWallet, a mobile crypto wallet, has recently completed a pre-series A funding round of $1.2M from a strategic group of investors including HashKey, Fenbushi Capital and LongHash.

06/08/2019 | BlockFi | $18,300,000 | Financial Services | USA

BlockFi, a wealth management solution for crypto investors, announced that it has raised $18.3M in Series A funding led by Valar Ventures with participation from Winklevoss Capital, Galaxy Digital, ConsenSys Ventures, Akuna Capital, Avon Ventures, Susquehanna, CMT Digital, Morgan Creek, and PJC.

06/08/2019 | kompany | Undisclosed | Compliance | Austria

UNIQA Ventures and Elevator Ventures, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), are investing in kompany®, a RegTech global verification and certification platform. Past investors, including the European Super Angels Club (ESAC), are increasing their stake.

07/08/2019 | Bezant | Undisclosed | Blockchain | Singapore

Bezant, a blockchain-as-a-service platform built on Hyperledger Fabric, has received a strategic investment from Korea Prepaid Card, a market leader in Korea’s $10B prepaid card market.

07/08/2019 | Bitmart | Undisclosed | Trading & Investment | Korea

BitMart, a global digital asset trading platform, has received millions in investment from Fenbushi Capital, and Bitrise Capital.

07/08/2019 | FTX | $8,000,000 | Trading & Investment | USA

FTX, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, has raised $8M in a seed round led by Proof of Capital, Consensus Lab, FBG and Galois Capital.

08/08/2019 | DrawBridge Lending | Undisclosed | Financial Services | USA

DrawBridge Lending, a firm doing digital asset lending, borrowing and investing, has received an investment from Galaxy Digital Ventures to further strengthen its fiat-crypto lending and investing capabilities.

11/08/2019 | MidChains | Undisclosed | Trading & Investment | UAE

MidChains, an Abu Dhabi based cryptocurrency exchange, has raised money from Mubadala Investment Capital, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund.

12/08/2019 | TradeWindow | Undisclosed | Financial Services | NZ

ASB Bank of New Zealand has invested in Tradewindow, a company using blockchain to create a ‘single trading window’ accessible by all parties involved in the transaction from the importer to the exporter.

13/08/2019 | Blade | $4,300,000 | Trading & Investment | USA

Blade, a new cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, has raised a $4.3M seed round from investors including Coinbase, SV Angel, A.Capital, Slow Ventures, Justin Kan and Adam D’Angelo.

14/08/2019 | StakeWith.Us | $595,000 | Staking | Singapore

StakeWith.Us, a staking-as-a-service startup, has raised a $595K (S$825K) seed round led by SGInnovate and LuneX Ventures.

15/08/2019 | Coinmine | $2,500,000 | Mining | USA

Coinmine, an LA-based consumer crypto hardware and software company has raised a $2.5M seed round led by LA-based M13. The round also includes Republic Labs, Gumi Crypto, Canaan Beta, and early Uber investor Shervin Pishevar.

15/08/2019 | Patientory | $5,300,000 | Healthcare | USA

Patientory, a population healthcare solution company, is the newest member of Oregon Enterprise Blockchain Venture Studio. R/GA Ventures operates the Studio and contributed to a $5.3M Series A raise for Patientory.

16/08/2019 | Evercoin | $1,000,000 | Cryptocurrency | USA

Evercoin, a crypto wallet has raised $1M in pre-seed financing from Gumi Cryptos Capital and various crypto pioneers.

16/08/2019 | Vid | Undisclosed | Media & Entertainment | USA

Vid, a firm that enables users to create video content on an AI and Blockchain-powered platform, has received a strategic investment from NGC Ventures. To date, Vid raised over $20M.

16/08/2019 | xDai | $500,000 | Financial Services | Germany

Payment ecosystem xDai has secured $500K in seed funding, led by B-Tech — the investment arm of BitMax.io and Focus Labs — together with blockchain VC firms Bixin Invest and NGC.

19/08/2019 | Jur | Undisclosed | Legal | Switzerland

Jur, a blockchain-based legal tech startup, has raised funding from Fenbushi Capital.

19/08/2019 | VeganNation | $10,000,000 | Israel

VeganNation, a global marketplace for vegans with a blockchain-based platform for supply-chain has closed a $10M funding round from private investors.

20/08/2019 | Captain Bitcoin | Undisclosed | Cryptocurrency | UK

Iconic Lab has invested in the crypto adoption platform, Captain Bitcoin.

20/08/2019 | CoinFLEX | $10,000,000 | Trading & Investment | Hong Kong

CoinFLEX, a new Asian crypto derivatives exchange, has closed a $10M fundraising round which includes contributions from Polychain, NGC Ventures, Fenbushi, and Struck Capital.

20/08/2019 | V-ID | Undisclosed | Identity | Netherlands

V-ID is a Dutch startup, aiming to solve the problem of digital fraud using Blockchain technology, has raised strategic investment from Moonrock Capital.

21/08/2019 | Assembl | $127,000 | Enterprise Solutions | Switzerland

Assembl, a software company focused on democratizing science by helping researchers collaborate and exchange data has announced the close of a $127K (CHF125K) angel round. The round was funded by CV VC, a Swiss blockchain-oriented investment firm.

22/08/2019 | B3i | Undisclosed | Insurance

B3i has received investment from China Pacific Insurance Group (CPIC).

22/08/2019 | Blocko | $7,500,000 | Enterprise Solutions | South Korea

Blocko, a startup building a blockchain platform for enterprise has raised $7.5M (KRW 9B) in Series B investment from Shinhan Bank and Korea Exchange Bank.

23/08/2019 | Terra | Undisclosed | Financial Services | South Korea

Terra, a stable coin platform, has raised an undisclosed amount of investment from Hashkey Capital.

27/08/2019 | Enigma | Undisclosed | Blockchain

Enigma, a decentralized computation protocol, has raised investment from Outlier Ventures.

27/08/2019 | RightBTC Exchange | Undisclosed | Trading & Investment | UAE

RightBTC has received a major strategic investment from angel investor Chandler Guo. He was also an early investor in exchanges such as Binance, Gate.io, and ZB.

28/08/2019 | Infinito | Undisclosed | Enterprise Solutions | Singapore

Infinito, a blockchain technology house, has raised strategic investment from Jubilee Technology Fund SPC.

30/08/2019 | Baton | $12,000,000 | Enterprise Solutions | USA

Baton Systems, a provider of high-speed, blockchain-inspired bank-to-bank payments infrastructure, has raised more than $12M to increase processing times and efficiencies within the $2T global payments market. The Series A investment round is led by Trinity Ventures, with participation from Alsop Louie and Commerce Ventures.


Token Offerings

Over $16.5M was raised in token sales in August 2019.

08/08/2019 | Echoin | $3,000,000 | Blockchain | China

Echoin conducted an IEO on the OKEx Jumpstart platform and raised $3M by selling over 265M tokens through a lottery.

18/08/2019 | Clear Markets | Undisclosed | Trading & Investment | Japan

Clear Markets has conducted an IEO on Liquid and is raising an undisclosed amount.

15/08/2019 | EMOGI Network | $2,800,350 | Cryptocurrency

EMOGI Network was the fifth IEO on the Huobi Prime platform and raised $2.8M by selling 1.4B tokens through a lottery.

20/08/2019 | Tokoin | $1,000,000 | Identity | Indonesia

Tokoin conducted an IEO on KuCoin’s Spotlight platform selling 50M tokens over two rounds and raised $1M.

22/08/2019 | Pledgecamp | $3,000,000 | Trading & Investment | USA

Pledgecamp conducted an IEO on the OKEx Jumpstart platform and raised $3M by selling over 1.2B tokens through a lottery.

24/08/2019 | Perlin | $6,700,000 | Blockchain | Singapore

Perlin conducted an IEO on the Binance Launchpad platform and raised $6.7M by selling 86.5M tokens through a lottery.


Mergers & Acquisitions

15/08/2019 | Xapo | $55,000,000 | Trading & Investment | Gibraltar

Coinbase has acquired the Institutional Custody Business of Xapo, pioneers in Bitcoin storage and custody for $55M. This acquisition makes Coinbase the largest institutional custodian for crypto assets in the world.

28/08/2019 | Blocktrade | Undisclosed | Trading & Investment | Liechtenstein

Cryptix AG, a Swiss full-service provider in the blockchain industry, has acquired Blocktrade, a Liechtenstein digital assets exchange.


Editorial Disclosure: A version of this article originally 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.


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