We are so back

We are so back

Alen

The market is holding steady with Bitcoin standing strong at $93K , no major moves in either direction. Meanwhile, the crypto funding market has shown serious momentum, raising a total of $958M this week of just 21 rounds compared to just $359M last week.

There are plenty of exciting new and returning projects this week — let’s dive in!

1. Nous Research raised $50M at $1B valuation

Decentralized AI startup on Solana - Nous Research has raised $50M in a Series A funding round from Paradigm.

Nous Research is a leader in the development of human-centric simulators and models. Nous research operates on the Solana, focusing on distributed training of open-source large language models. Nous Research aims to disrupt traditional AI labs by leveraging global compute resources for its AI model training competing with giants like ChatGPT or DeepSeek. 

The startup's flagship language model, Hermes 3, has surpassed 50M downloads and powers agents across platforms like X, Telegram, and gaming environments. 

Nous Research’s team will allocate much of the new capital toward scaling compute resources and advancing research. 

2.  Symbiotic raised $29M from Pantera Capital

Shared security protocol - Symbiotic has raised $29M in a Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Aave Companies, P2 Ventures and many more angels. 

Symbiotic is a shared security protocol designed to create a marketplace for economic security. It enables networks that need security to access it from those who have assets to stake, creating an efficient ecosystem where stake can be shared and utilized across multiple networks. Through its flexible architecture, stake providers can maximize their returns while networks can obtain the security guarantees they need.

This milestone investment accelerates Universal Staking, a modular coordination layer that transforms blockchain security and economic alignment. Unlike traditional restaking, Universal Staking builds a foundation for capital-efficient collaboration, enabling flexible economic alignment across a protocol’s entire lifecycle. 

3. MagicBlock raised $7.5M from Lightspeed Faction

Solana-based high-performance engine - MagicBlock has raised $7.5M in a Seed funding round led by Lightspeed Faction, with participation from Maven 11 Capital, Mechanism Capital, Robot Ventures, Delphi Ventures, and others.

MagicBlock is building a high-performance engine for real-time applications on Solana.  Their pioneering technology is Ephemeral Rollups, enable developers to get the best of both worlds - Solana's tightly-integrated liquidity and vibrant ecosystem with the app-specific customization of rollups

They’ve already teamed up with some of the most forward-thinking projects in the Solana ecosystem, including:

  • Flash Trade: A decentralized derivatives exchange using our rollups for real-time, gas-efficient trading
  • Supersize: An on-chain real-time multiplayer game built for maximum verifiability and composability
  • dTelecom: Decentralized voice and video, powered by ephemeral rollups for ultra-low latency
  • Pyth Lazer: Providing 1ms price feeds via MagicBlock runtime extensions
  • Jito: leveraging restaking to reduce execution time and improve validator security

4. Arch Network raised $13M from Pantera Capital

Bitcoin-native application platform - Arch Network has raised $13M in a Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Multicoin Capital.

Arch is building the financial rails for a Bitcoin-powered world, without needing any changes to Bitcoin’s core.

Using a new tech stack, Arch solves the Bitcoin Builder’s Dilemma by combining:

  • A decentralized validator network to handle Bitcoin-native transactions and smart contracts.
  • A UTXO-aware execution environment that posts transactions directly to Bitcoin.
  • Advanced cryptographic multisig (FROST + ROAST) for secure, programmable execution.

With Arch, users can access apps directly from Bitcoin wallets like Xverse, Unisat, Magic Eden, and Ledger — no bridges or new wallets needed.

Developers get the flexibility to settle instantly with Arch’s pre-confirmation system or scale liquidity for Runes and Ordinals using the Titan indexer. Arch is the application layer Bitcoin has been missing, preserving Bitcoin’s integrity while unlocking a fast, open, and powerful economy.

Arch Labs launched a test version of ArchVM in November 2024, attracting over 300K wallets and several DeFi apps. Its founder Mudano plans a public launch in early May and will use the latest funding to grow the engineering team and speed up deployment.

5. Theo Network raised $20M from Hack VC

Decentralized trading infrastructure platform - Theo Network has raised $20M in a funding round led by Hack VC, Anthos Capital, with participation from Manifold, Mirana Ventures, MH Ventures, Metalayer Ventures, SCB Limited, Amber Group, Selini Capital, MEXC and Flowdesk. 

Theo is building decentralized trading infrastructure that delivers superior order execution, seamless access to on- and off-chain markets, and deep liquidity. Behind the scenes, Theo runs on a low-latency settlement network that executes trades across major venues while automatically managing margin requirements.

The team plans to remove investor’s deposit caps by the end of April. So far, Theo’s protocol has mainly connected with DeFi platforms like Aave and Hyperliquid, but they plan to try out their trading strategies on centralized exchanges like Binance and Bybit . As Theo co-founder Abhi Pingle put it, “longer term, we actually want to integrate with more traditional markets as well.”

Conclusion

This has been one of the strongest weeks for crypto fundraising this April. It's been a long time since we’ve seen such a large amount raised in just one week: $955M across 21 rounds.

Most of the projects are still in the seed or pre-seed stage, with a strong focus on DeFi infrastructure, indicating where current developer and investor attention is concentrated. 

See you guys next week!