$158 million in funding for blockchain and metaverse development

In the last week, nine companies in the crypto world have raised $158 million in funding from private investors: blockchain development companies and a metaverse developer stand out.

Although the crypto market is still not very vibrant, work continues apace with many companies receiving financial incentives every week.

Let’s go find out all the details in the news.

The latest funding in the blockchain world: work in progress on layer-1 infrastructure and a metaverse creator

Last week we saw blockchain companies and metaverse developers receive $158 million in funding from various venture capital funds.

Crypto custody platform Bitgo earned the bulk of this investment by raising $100 million in a Series C round in which the names of those providing the money were not disclosed.

The company’s valuation now stands at $1.75 billion, about $500 million over the offer made by Galaxy Digital to acquire the custodian during 2021 (later withdrawn in August 2022).

BitGo CEO Mike Belshe said it will use the money to meet the growing global demand for crypto custody platforms, providing institutions, brands, and foundations with a seamless secure presence within the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Other entities that have raised money from funding include blockchain Zetachain, which has earned a whopping $27 million.

VC names include Blockchain.com, Jane Street Capital, Human Capital, Vy Capital, and GSR.

Zetachain, an EVM-compatible layer-1 infrastructure, wants to depart from the fad of bridges and wrapped tokens and embrace a simpler, more interoperable future, giving users access to its services through a single platform independent of the blockchain they belong to.

The goal is indeed complex, given and considering that it is not a centralized platform but a decentralized network, however with $27 million in its pocket there are the prerequisites to work well.

Another blockchain company operating in the layer-1 context, Linera, also raised funding last week, adding $6 million to its portfolio during its latest seed round.

Investors include the names of a16z, Laser Digital Ventures, Matrixport, Flow Traders and GSR.

Linera, created two years ago by former Meta engineer Mathieu Baudet, aims to scale the blockchain world by adding parallel chains to its infrastructure rather than increasing block sizes or changing the cryptographic production system.

The funds raised by the company will mainly be used to expand its team and to launch a devnet and a testnet.

It is also very interesting to note the latest $13 million seed round closed in favor of ZTX, a metaverse platform run by Zepeto.

Venture capitalists Jump crypto, Collab+Currency, Parataxis and others firmly believe in the future of this blockchain creator, which wants to merge the gaming and metaverse contexts.

It seems that the experience in the field is not lacking, given the names behind the project, and we can now say that the capital to devote to the work is there as well.

The ZTX case: the Zepeto metaverse and the seed round led by Jump Capital

Zepeto, one of the leading companies in South Korea’s blockchain world valued at $1 billion, is investing heavily in the metaverse and NFTs.

Things are starting to get serious after the latest round the funding that its joint venture, ZTX raised under Jump Crypto’s wake.

A total of $13 million of the money has been invested by several VC signatures to expand Zepeto’s initiative by increasing adoption in the cryptocurrency world in Asia.

In detail, the company’s goal is to introduce the concept of “ownership” within the 3D worlds of the metaverse.

In fact, the “Genesis Home Mint,” which is a process in which the project’s community can mint an NFT representative of a 3D home that will give access to future drops, events, and game improvements, will be unveiled soon.

A total of 4,000 houses in the metaverse will be available, and the blockchain network hosting them will be that of Arbitrum.

Zepeto thus aims to compete with other dominant metaverse platforms in the web3 world such as The Sandbox, Decentraland, and Otherside.

Of note, last month the ZTX project started a private beta test of its upcoming platform by collaborating with Dust Labs, a company that works for the famous NFT DeGods and Y00ts collections.

The focus of the experiment was to provide the “Partner Wearables” community with all the tools to create 3D assets and objects within the metaverse, so they could get meaningful feedback on core and surface functionality.

ZTX co-CEO Chris Jang emphasized in a recent interview his startup’s commitment to “provide an infrastructure layer for creators” with a view to providing a framework for mainstream development of metaverse environments.

The ZTX team is certainly not a bunch of teenage nerds who are passionate about digital environments, and it features gentlemen who have worked for Apple, Roblox, Epic Games and EA, along with experts in the blockchain world who have built on Solana, Flow and Cosmos.