Crypto funding accelerated in the week of July 13-19, with 17 disclosed blockchain financing deals worth more than $812 million in total, according to PANews. The money kept flowing into centralized finance, stablecoins and trading infrastructure, while AI-linked projects also drew strong interest.
Tiger Research and RootData said capital inflows into the crypto market reached $13.3 billion in the first half of 2026. The total came across 435 rounds, down 78% from the 1,978-round peak recorded in 2022, pointing to a market where capital is concentrating into a smaller number of large transactions.
Weekly deal count by segment
DeFi accounted for two disclosed deals, including a $4 million raise for crypto trading platform Quote Trade.
Infrastructure and tools produced seven deals. One of the larger rounds in that category went to Miami-based payment infrastructure startup Cyclops, which raised $20 million in Series A financing.
Centralized finance logged five deals, including a $135 million round for Alpaca led by Peak XV.
Web3 + AI saw one disclosed deal, with DGrid AI raising $5 million in seed financing from investors including Waterdrip Capital.
Prediction markets posted one deal, with Pascal raising $9 million in a Series A led by Union Square Ventures, or USV.
DeFi
Quote Trade raises $4 million
Dubai-based AI-native decentralized exchange Quote Trade said it raised $4 million. The company plans to use the money to support more blockchains and digital assets, deepen relationships with liquidity partners, hire engineering and trading staff, and continue building infrastructure designed to let autonomous AI trading agents work alongside human traders.
Trasia secures seed backing from Multicoin Capital
Trasia Labs, the developer behind Trasia, said it has raised $35 million in total, including a $1.75 million seed round led by Multicoin Capital. Trasia focuses on liquidity provision for Asia equities perpetuals.
The capital will go toward launching web and mobile applications, growing users, and opening the first HIP-3 markets focused on Asian securities assets. Trasia said its web trading interface is already live in Chinese and English, while the mobile app is expected this summer.
Trasia Labs is building Trasia as an Asia-first, non-custodial trading platform on Hyperliquid. The platform will initially offer Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 native markets and plans to launch its own HIP-3 markets later this year, with cash-settled reference price contracts tied to Asia-listed assets.
Infrastructure and tools
ADI Chain announces $50 million financing
ADI Chain said it completed a $50 million financing round. The project focuses on stablecoin settlement and financial infrastructure, with ecosystem cooperation spanning compliant stablecoins, tokenized securities, institutional payments, Chainlink, ZKsync and major crypto wallets.
Cyclops raises $20 million Series A
Cyclops, a Miami-headquartered payment infrastructure startup, raised $20 million in Series A financing aimed at helping payment companies use stablecoins to speed up settlement. The company said it uses stablecoins to improve cross-border and traditional payment workflows, raise settlement efficiency, cut costs and widen enterprise use of stablecoins in payment and financial infrastructure.
Pact Labs closes $7 million Series A led by Tether
Tether said it led a $7 million Series A round in infrastructure provider Pact Labs, with Blockchange Ventures and Lasagna also participating. The funds will be used to expand the use of USA₮ in payroll, earned wage access, lending and day-to-day payments.
Tether said it plans to use Pact Labs to embed the U.S.-compliant digital dollar USA₮ into payroll and payment systems used by U.S. businesses, enabling real-time wage payments, wallet integration and a path around delays tied to traditional batch-processing rails.
Glacis Labs raises $6.8 million seed round
Glacis Labs, the startup behind the crypto clearing platform ZeroDelta, raised $6.8 million in seed funding led by Lightspeed Faction. Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, A.GAIN, Protein Capital and Techni Ventures also joined. The deal was structured as equity plus token warrants, and the valuation was not disclosed.
Founded in January 2024, Glacis has built ZeroDelta as a multi-chain clearing platform that lowers counterparty risk by matching, netting and settling transfers of digital assets across chains. ZeroDelta currently supports USDC, USDT and USDe, with plans to expand into tokenized securities, real-world assets and foreign exchange. The company said it generates revenue by charging fees on cleared volume, has processed more than $1 billion in volume and is running at a $1.5 billion annualized rate. The team has 10 employees and plans to add staff across engineering, compliance and go-to-market roles.
2U2.ai raises $3 million at a $100 million valuation
AI-driven meme infrastructure project 2U2.ai said it completed a new strategic financing round worth $3 million at a $100 million valuation. Vega Venture led the round, with Archer Capital, UZ Capital and Infinite Alliance also participating.
The company said the capital will go toward improving its MemeLayer infrastructure, expanding ecosystem partnerships and pushing broader use of AI memes in content creation, community distribution and attention routing. 2U2.ai is building an AI-driven MemeLayer for Web3 through meme generation, remix, distribution and incentive mechanisms. It has already launched the Meme Arms Race points system, where users can earn points through creating, sharing and spreading meme content and later take part in ecosystem incentives.
AXON Finance raises $2 million strategic round
PayFi AI-native Layer 1 project AXON Finance said it raised $2 million from investors including InfiniteAll AI, UZ Capital and BMF. The money will support the launch of its first open-ecosystem product, a copy-trading engine for U.S. stocks, backed by AXON’s Layer 1 settlement and account abstraction stack and developed in cooperation with a prediction platform and a former Silicon Valley quant trading team.
ILITY closes $1 million institutional round
L1 blockchain ILITY said it received a $1 million investment from Archer Capital and TBV to speed up its push into the agent economy. The project said its AI agent economic ecosystem is set to go live soon, and the new capital will be directed mainly toward that effort.
ILITY Network describes itself as infrastructure for the AI agent economy. It offers verifiable on-chain identity for autonomous agents, machine-to-machine real-time payment and settlement between agents, and a portable reputation system built on actual on-chain performance records. Its native token, ILY, serves as the gas and settlement asset in the ecosystem. The project said earlier financing rounds included backing from Animoca Brands, DuckDAO, UZ Capital and Vega Ventures.
Centralized finance
Crypto.com gets $400 million from Citadel Securities at a $20 billion valuation
Crypto.com said it received a $400 million strategic investment from Citadel Securities at a $20 billion valuation. The company said the deal marks its first institutional funding round since it was founded 10 years ago, and it was the largest crypto financing announced during the week covered by PANews.
The exchange said the capital will help it expand across all asset classes, including tokenized securities and derivatives, as it works to connect digital asset markets more closely with traditional finance.
Alpaca raises $135 million led by Peak XV
Alpaca, an API brokerage focused on stocks, options and cryptocurrencies for developers, said it raised $135 million in financing led by Peak XV. Elefund joined, along with new and existing investors including Opera Tech Ventures, the venture arm of BNP Paribas, and Unbound.
Alpaca said the new capital will support agent-first brokerage infrastructure for tokenized markets and AI-native financial services. The company said total financing has reached $435 million, including debt financing largely provided by Payward, the parent of Kraken, and BMO.
Flex raises $70 million in B1 round
California-based fintech company Flex raised $70 million in a B1 financing led by Halo Fund to expand its business. Flex Global, its stablecoin-based cross-border banking platform, offers multi-currency accounts covering 32 currencies across 170 countries and regions.
The company said its core customers generate annual revenue between $3 million and $200 million and are concentrated in construction, wholesale, and import-export industries.
Velocity lands $38 million Series A led by Dragonfly
London-based payments startup Velocity raised $38 million in Series A financing led by crypto venture firm Dragonfly, with participation from Coinbase, Capital One Ventures and market maker Wintermute.
Founded in 2025, Velocity provides stablecoin-based cross-border settlement and treasury management products to global merchants, payment companies, fintech firms and financial institutions. It said its main competitors are traditional banks and foreign-exchange providers. The company is already operating in the U.S., parts of Europe and Australia. The new funding will be used to seek licenses in Africa and Latin America, strengthen custody infrastructure, and develop yield-bearing stablecoin products for larger enterprise treasury and cross-border settlement needs.
Tether invests $20 million in Ualá
Tether invested $20 million in Argentine digital bank Ualá as part of the company’s previously announced $197 million financing round from March. Ualá said it plans to use the capital to speed up expansion in Argentina, Mexico and Colombia.
Founder and CEO Pierpaolo Barbieri said Ualá will not integrate USDT on the platform in the near term because of the regulatory environment in Argentina and Mexico, and that Tether joined only as a financial investor. Ualá said it has 11 million customers, was valued at $3.2 billion after the round, and plans to accelerate growth in Mexico.
Prediction markets
Pascal raises $9 million Series A led by USV
Prediction market platform Pascal said it raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures. The round extends a $6 million seed round the company announced in August last year. Early investors included Wintermute Ventures and DBA.
Pascal said it is building a next-generation prediction market platform for professional traders and institutions, aiming to offer lower fees, better liquidity and more advanced trading tools through a model that more closely resembles perpetual futures.
Crypto treasury
ORANGE JUICE raises $40 million for a bitcoin-reserve-backed permanent capital vehicle
ORANGE JUICE said it raised $40 million to establish a permanent capital holding company backed by bitcoin reserves. The company was co-founded by ego death capital partner Jeff Booth, Lyn Alden, Nico Lechuga and Andi Pitt. Grupo Salinas founder Ricardo Salinas joined as an anchor investor.
The company said it is not bound by fund life cycles or resale pressure and can focus on the long-term development of portfolio companies. It plans to seek a public listing in the future. Its first targets are stable cash-generating businesses producing annual cash flow between $1 million and $10 million. Acquired companies will keep their brand identity, while founders can retire, stay on or transition gradually. Cash generated by operations will be reinvested into acquisitions or bitcoin reserves.
AI + Web3
DGrid AI raises $5 million seed round
Decentralized AI network DGrid AI said first-half 2026 revenue topped $23 million and paid subscribers exceeded 15,000. The company also disclosed a $5 million seed round backed by Waterdrip Capital, IoTeX, Paramita VC, Zenith Capital and others.
DGrid said it aggregates more than 200 mainstream models, including Claude, GPT, Gemini and MiniMax, through a unified AI Gateway. It also uses a proprietary Proof of Quality, or PoQ, mechanism to support service quality and pricing transparency as it builds open, verifiable decentralized AI infrastructure.
M&A
Keyrock acquires BlockFills institutional trading and brokerage business
Crypto infrastructure and capital markets company Keyrock said it completed the acquisition of BlockFills’ institutional trading and brokerage business. The deal brings BlockFills’ trading technology, institutional client relationships and an experienced derivatives trading team to Keyrock.
Keyrock said the acquisition also expands its regulatory footprint, giving it a CIMA-registered entity in the Cayman Islands and supporting plans to obtain authorization from the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority. The company did not disclose the purchase price. Previous court filings and earlier reporting had indicated that Keyrock was selected in BlockFills’ bankruptcy restructuring process with a $3.25 million bid. Chicago-based BlockFills filed for bankruptcy protection earlier in 2026 after taking major losses during the February crypto market crash.
SBI Holdings completes Coinhako acquisition
Japanese financial group SBI Holdings said it obtained the approvals required from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS, and completed its acquisition of licensed Singapore crypto exchange and digital wallet operator Coinhako. Coinhako operates under Singapore regulation and provides digital asset trading and custody services.
MoonPay acquires Glide
MoonPay said it completed the acquisition of crypto deposit startup Glide, its sixth acquisition announced in 2026. The transaction was an all-equity deal, and Glide’s four-person team will join MoonPay.
Glide was founded in 2023 by Soni and Qinyu Tong, who had previously worked together on the crypto wallet development team at Robinhood. MoonPay said Glide was backed by Y Combinator, Titan Fund and other investors. Glide’s technology lets applications accept crypto deposits without requiring users to manually bridge across chains or swap assets, which MoonPay said can reduce onboarding friction.
Selected AI and robotics financings
Fireworks raises $1.5 billion at a $17.5 billion valuation
Fireworks, an Nvidia-backed AI cloud services startup, raised $1.5 billion at a $17.5 billion valuation. The round was led by Atreides Management, Index Ventures and TCV, with participation from Nvidia, Evantic and Lightspeed Venture Partners, among others.
Fireworks provides hosting and runtime services for open-source AI models. The company said annualized revenue has surpassed $1 billion, five times the level of a year earlier. It also said it now processes 40 trillion AI tokens a day and has started offering GPUs for AI model training.
Emergent raises $130 million Series C at roughly $1.5 billion valuation
Indian AI coding startup Emergent raised $130 million in Series C funding at a post-money valuation of about $1.5 billion, roughly five times the $300 million valuation it carried in January. Private equity firm Creaegis led the round, with MNI Ventures-Claypond, Sentinel Global, Khosla Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Lightspeed and Y Combinator also participating. Total funding has reached $230 million.
Emergent offers an AI coding platform described as “engineering team as a service” for small and medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurs. The company said it is running at about $120 million in annualized revenue, up about 70% over the past four months, with more than 200,000 paying users across sectors including logistics, manufacturing, construction and property management.
Hadrius raises $27 million across seed and Series A
AI compliance infrastructure company Hadrius said it raised $27 million across seed and Series A financing. The Series A was led by CRV, and participants included Y Combinator, Pathlight Ventures, and angel investors such as the founders of Altruist and Jump AI.
Hadrius was founded by a team that previously operated an SEC-registered investment adviser. It provides an AI-driven integrated compliance platform for regulated financial institutions, covering personnel, trading, marketing, communications, branch oversight and compliance manual implementation through six agent modules.
a16z backs Runta
a16z said it invested in AI agent security startup Runta, though the size of the investment was not disclosed. The company is developing what it calls “AI agent guardianship” infrastructure to help enterprises manage agent permissions, security risks and behavioral boundaries, with the aim of preventing data leaks, erroneous actions or financial losses when autonomous systems execute tasks.
Runta founder Guanlan Dai previously worked on Cloudflare’s technical team and served as a founding engineer at API connectivity startup Kong. Dai said AI agents resemble growing children in one respect: they can act autonomously, but still require boundaries, supervision and permission controls.
Walden Robotics raises about $300 million in seed funding
Walden Robotics, a humanoid robotics startup spun out of Toyota’s robotics research lab, raised about $300 million in seed financing at a valuation of $1.1 billion. The round was co-led by Deviation Capital and Toyota Motor, with participation from Toyota’s strategic investment and early-stage venture units as well as Nvidia, Boeing, AE Ventures, Samsung Ventures and CoreWeave Ventures.
Walden is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and develops its own hardware, software and AI models. It is focused on deploying general-purpose robots in manufacturing and logistics facilities to handle tasks workers see as physically taxing. Co-founder Russ Tedrake said the company has already started selling humanoid robots to customers across multiple industries, including pilot projects at Toyota plants in North America where the robots handle repetitive work such as loading and unloading auto parts and cleaning equipment. Tedrake previously held an executive role at Toyota Research Institute and taught robotics at MIT.
LimX Dynamics completes nearly $200 million pre-IPO round
Shenzhen-based humanoid robot company LimX Dynamics said it raised nearly $200 million in a pre-IPO round, or about 1.356 billion yuan, at a post-money valuation of 15 billion yuan. The company said it has raised $400 million over the past six months.
Investors in the round included IDG Capital, Lens Technology from Apple’s supply chain, Europe-based GGG Group and Redstone VC, Huashan Capital and Hefei Binhu State-Owned Asset Development Group. Stone Venture from the United Arab Emirates participated again after earlier rounds, while existing shareholders including Oasis Capital, Jishi Capital, Nanshan Strategic Emerging Industries Investment, Shangqi Capital and NIO Capital increased their positions. Overseas capital accounted for nearly 70% of the round. LimX said it will put more money into core technology research, scale up deployment of LimX Luna and expand overseas markets. It has completed its corporate restructuring and is moving ahead with an IPO.
Brinc raises $125 million
Brinc, the drone company backed by OpenAI founder Sam Altman, said it raised $125 million led by existing investor Motorola Solutions, with participation from earlier investors including Index Ventures and Dylan Field. The company focuses on applying AI-based drone technology to public safety, including replacing some high-risk human response tasks.