Fundraising Market Is Quiet at $100K BTC - What’s Going On?

Fundraising Market Is Quiet at $100K BTC - What’s Going On?

Alen

BTC is trading above the $100K level, yet market sentiment is surprisingly dry, worse even than when BTC was at $60K. How could this happen?

This week funding is also slow in response to the market, but we’re seeing a new narrative - ticketing platform, let’s dive in to see what’s that about. 

1. Monad-based perpetual DEX raised $9.25M

Monad's on-chain perpetual futures DEX - Perpl hasraised $9.25M in a funding round led by Dragonfly Capital, Ergonia, with participation from Brevan Howard Digital, Mirana Ventures, L1 Digital, Hashkey Capital, CMS Holdings and Breed VC.

Perpetual futures are becoming more of a popular product, especially in crypto. Perpl is a fully on-chain perpetual futures exchange built on Monad, a high-performance EVM blockchain. It aims to eliminate inefficiencies in centralized finance by providing a transparent, verifiable, and efficient trading platform with no single point of failure, no off-chain matching, and maximum capital efficiency and composability. 

By building on Monad, Perpl users will benefit from: 

  • Performant CLOB: low gas, effective market making for minimal slippage
  • Seamless UX: fast, reliable, and deterministic transactions
  • Full custody: traders remain in control of their assets at all times
  • Censorship resistance: 100s of geographically distributed independent validators

2. Ticketing platform on Aptos raised $7.10M from a16z

Web3 ticketing platform on Aptos - KYD Labs has raised $7.10M in a Seed funding round led by a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX), with participation from Finality Capital, Ambush Capital, TechStars, and some individual investors.

KYD (Keep Your Distribution) is redefining live events by empowering venues and artists to own their audience, revenue, and future. Breaking free from outdated systems and intermediaries, KYD builds the infrastructure for a new era where fans gain direct, fair access to experiences, and creators retain control and profits. 

With KYD, every ticket sold and every dollar earned flows back to those who truly create value, no more outsiders setting the rules. Venues and artists have made 30% more on ticket sales and 2x’d marketing ROI by KYD, their lending protocol lets accredited investors lend USDC to venues and artists, earning yield from their success every time fans attend shows.

KYD the first web3 company to onboard legendary venues like LPR and H0l0, driving $4M+ in ticket sales in the past year alone.

3. Ticketing platform on Solana raised $6.20M

Web3 ticketing platform on Solana - XP (Captain Labs) has raised $6.20M in a Seed funding round led by Blockchange Ventures, with participation from L1 Digital and Reflexive Capital.

XP is a transparent ticket marketplace offering over 50 million live event tickets at up to 30% less than competitors by eliminating hidden fees. To enhance transparency, XP features Tixpy, an AI-powered Chrome extension that compares ticket prices across sites, and in-app Price Alerts that notify fans when their ideal seats become available at the right price. 

A bit different from KYD above which focuses on venues and artists, XP focuses on the buyers, letting them buy the most affordable tickets. 

XP’s founder Mike Saunders said that there will be more features to the platform, including where users will be able to list and resell their own tickets.

4. Turtle Club raised $6.20M 

Web3 liquidity distribution protocol - Turtle Club has raised $6.20M in a Seed funding round led by Theia, with participation from SIG DTI, ConsenSys, Laser Digital, L2 Iterative Ventures, Re7 Labs and many more.

Turtle Club is the first protocol built  for on-chain liquidity distribution, designed to connect LPs, protocols, and partners through sustainable and transparent incentive models, benefiting all parties involved: LPs earn more from their deployed liquidity, protocols maintain liquidity without relying on unsustainable incentives, and partners can monetize their user's activity effectively. 

Since its launch in March 2024, Turtle Club reports:

  • 315,000+ registered wallets
  • $2.3B+ in total value bootstrapped
  • 51 integrated protocols
  • $550M deployed in 45 days via its first chain bootstrapping campaign

5. Avalanche-based DeFi protocol raised $5M

Avalanche-based DeFi yield platform and synthetic dollar - XSY (Unity) has raised $5M in a Series A funding round led by Borderless Capital, Protagonist, with participation from Paper Ventures, Blizzard, Chainview Capital and Sonic Boom Ventures.

Capital management platform XSY recently has announced the beta release of its flagship product, Unity. $UTY is described as a digital synthetic dollar designed to unlock liquidity and drive capital efficiency within blockchain

By pairing long spot holdings with short perpetual futures, Unity allows $AVAX holders to maintain their $AVAX exposure while accessing sustainable yield. Notably, $UTY has already secured over $20M in commitments prior to its beta release.

Conclusion

This week saw 22 funding rounds totaling just $71M, perfectly reflecting the current slow pace of the crypto market.

Notably, two projects (KYD and XP) focused on the same area - Ticket Marketplaces. While it may seem minor, I believe this is a crucial gateway that seamlessly bridges Web2 users to Web3, and it has the potential to make a significant impact on the broader crypto ecosystem.