PANews counted 11 blockchain funding deals globally during the week of Oct. 5 to Oct. 11, with disclosed funding totaling more than $219 million. Tiger Research said in its 2026 Q3 Crypto Industry Investment Report that M&A volume stayed steady in the third quarter, but large acquisitions gave way to smaller transactions, with buyers focusing more on specific capabilities such as licenses, payments, and institutional trading.
The week’s deal flow in crypto and AI showed a visible concentration of capital. In crypto, investors kept leaning toward real-world asset tokenization, stablecoin payments, and infrastructure linked to traditional finance. More established business models, including exchanges and digital-asset insurance, also continued to attract institutional money.
Crypto funding: DeFi, RWA, payments, and centralized finance stayed active
Navra raises $19 million in Series A
DeFi fintech startup Navra said it closed an oversubscribed $19 million Series A led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Baseline, DCM, Jump Crypto, and Figure Technology Solutions.
Navra connects users to multiple blockchain venues through a single interface, links DeFi yield protocols with cash rails, offers keyless self-custody designed to meet qualified custody requirements, and includes built-in AI agents. The company said it plans a limited rollout for retail and institutional clients in late October. Figure will become its first blockchain partner, and a white-label product is also planned.
Imperial raises $1.5 million seed round
Solana perpetual futures platform Imperial completed a $1.5 million seed round at a $15 million valuation, led by Foundation Capital and backed by angel investors from the Solana ecosystem.
The company said the funding will support an expanded product suite that includes a perpetuals aggregator, a lending platform, and its flagship project Armada. Imperial described Armada as a Solana-native perpetual AMM that sources liquidity from DeFi venues such as Hyperliquid, allowing traders to access deeper order books without leaving Solana.
Spiko closes $90 million Series B
Tokenized cash fund issuer Spiko announced a $90 million Series B led by New Enterprise Associates, bringing its total funding to $120 million.
Spiko said its tokenized cash fund business now spans more than 25 jurisdictions and has reached $2.7 billion in assets under management. The company plans to use the new capital to launch more fund products, enter new markets, and expand its team.
Soda Labs raises $3 million seed round
Programmable privacy infrastructure company Soda Labs completed a $3 million seed round led by NextBlock.
Over the past two and a half years, Soda Labs has developed a cryptographic privacy system that combines garbled circuits with multi-party computation, or GC-MPC. The company said the system relies on established standards such as AES and SHA256, and that its privacy engine runs on standard cloud CPUs without specialized hardware, allowing applications to keep their links to existing public blockchain infrastructure while adding private computation.
Noah raises $38 million in seed funding
Stablecoin payments infrastructure company Noah said it raised $38 million in seed funding from Endeit Capital, FJ Labs, LocalGlobe, Felix Capital, and several angel investors.
The company said the capital will be used to expand international remittance operations and broaden its regulatory footprint for stablecoin-based cross-border payments serving businesses and individuals.
IPID raises $16 million Series A
Singapore fintech company IPID announced a $16 million Series A led by Foundation Capital, with participation from Citigroup, HSBC, and existing investors QED Investors, Monk's Hill Ventures, and Quona Capital.
The company said the funding will go toward improving its global payment intelligence network and expanding work tied to U.S. payment rails, stablecoins, and digital-asset markets.
Anyflo acquires Native and receives $1 million from Mysten Labs
Enterprise stablecoin payment orchestration service Anyflo said on Oct. 8, 2026, in Singapore that it had emerged from stealth and made its public debut at Sui Basecamp during TOKEN2049. The company was incubated internally by Mysten Labs, a core contributor to Sui. Founder and CEO Lola Oyelayo-Pearson previously served as general manager of product at Mysten and earlier held roles at Shopify and Capital One.
Anyflo brought Native into the company through an acqui-hire. Before the deal, Native had raised just under $2 million, launched a listable bitcoin lending platform on Sui, and ranked in the top five out of 630 projects in Sui Overflow 2025. Co-founder Robert Zaremba and his team will join Anyflo.
Anyflo describes itself as an orchestration layer that offers multichain stablecoin access while handling complexity around blockchain networks, liquidity, and routing. The company plans to enter private alpha in October 2026 with a production preview and liquidity access, followed by a beta in the first quarter of 2027. In addition to incubating the company, Mysten Labs invested $1 million.
Meanwhile raises $37 million
Bitcoin life insurance company Meanwhile, backed by Sam Altman, completed a new $37 million financing round at a $350 million valuation. Bain Capital Crypto led the round, with Haun Ventures, Framework Ventures, Pantera Capital, Apollo, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, and Morgan Creek Digital also participating.
Meanwhile said the proceeds will be used to meet demand for bitcoin-denominated life insurance in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Bermuda, the company says it is the first life insurer authorized to operate entirely in bitcoin. Since launch, it has signed 15 brokerage firms serving wealthy families and built business across insurance hubs including Singapore, Hong Kong, the UAE, and Switzerland. Its total funding now exceeds $180 million.
OKX completes new financing at a $25 billion valuation
Crypto exchange OKX completed a new financing round at a $25 billion valuation. Investors included existing partners and hedge fund Qube Research & Technologies, along with Circle, Ripple, and Standard Chartered's investment arm SC Ventures.
OKX did not disclose the amount raised, but said the round extends a financing completed in March, when Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, invested about $200 million in OKX at the same valuation. Haider Rafique, OKX's global managing partner, said the new financing is focused on strengthening the exchange's long-term market infrastructure.
Vest raises $13 million seed round
Crypto proprietary trading platform Vest said it raised $13 million in seed funding led by Portal Ventures, with participation from individual investors including executives from Citadel Securities, BlackRock, and KKR.
Vest allows eligible traders to trade live perpetual contracts around the clock and share profits with the platform. The round was completed in July but disclosed only recently.
AI-linked projects: large financings and IPO plans dominated headlines
orbio raises $1.2 million seed round
orbio, an AI project in the Robinhood ecosystem, announced a $1.2 million seed round. The participating investors were not disclosed. The team said the money will be used to build rails that let agents configure compute, hardware, and private infrastructure on their own.
As of publication, GMGN market data showed ORBIO with a market capitalization of $53.42 million and a 24-hour gain of 26%. The token was issued on the Pons platform and uses an Nvidia stock token as its base pool. Public information shows the project is building a low-cost AI credits marketplace offering discounted trading across more than 400 AI model credits, including Claude Fable and GPT Astra. PANews noted that trading volume in the token is relatively small and price swings are large.
M&A: infrastructure and payment capabilities remained in focus
SVRN acquires FastNEAR
NEAR treasury company SVRN completed its acquisition of NEAR infrastructure platform FastNEAR. Following the transaction, FastNEAR became a wholly owned subsidiary of SVRN, and co-founders Evgeny, or Eugene, Kuzyakov and Mike Purvis joined the SVRN team.
Public information shows FastNEAR is a high-performance RPC infrastructure provider supporting NEAR applications and much of the network's data layer. Its business includes server clusters that process network reads and writes, archival infrastructure that stores full transaction history, and NEARDATA, a historical data source for developers.
Anchorage Digital acquires Routable
Anchorage Digital, the first federally chartered digital asset bank in the United States, acquired B2B payments platform Routable. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Routable uses developer-first APIs to help businesses onboard and verify payees, automate tax and compliance workflows, and make mass payouts to creators, contractors, sellers, and others in more than 220 countries, supporting both fiat and stablecoin payments. Anchorage Digital said the deal will broaden its customer base from crypto-native firms to traditional financial institutions entering digital assets, as well as large technology companies and Fortune 500 businesses with significant payout needs. Routable will operate under a new brand, and stablecoin and tokenized deposit products are expected in the coming quarters.
Selected AI financings: DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, TypeSafe AI, and Butterfly Effect report new developments
Moonshot AI reportedly completes pre-IPO financing
According to people familiar with the matter, Moonshot AI has completed its final private financing round at roughly a $50 billion valuation and is preparing for an initial public offering in Hong Kong in the first quarter of next year. The sources said the company has also started preparing to gauge investor interest and could begin preliminary talks with investors as early as this month. Discussions are still ongoing, and the IPO timeline could change.
DeepSeek financing could reach $12 billion
AI company DeepSeek is nearing a new financing round expected to total at least RMB 80 billion, or about $12 billion, well above its earlier target of roughly RMB 50 billion.
People familiar with the matter said Tencent Holdings and CATL have committed sizable amounts to the round, which is expected to close soon. After the release of DeepSeek's latest AI model, stronger market demand and investor interest pushed the financing beyond expectations, and the final amount could approach RMB 100 billion. Bloomberg Línea reported that DeepSeek plans an IPO in early 2027, and that the financing would support the company's pre-listing expansion.
TypeSafe AI raises about $870 million at a $7.5 billion valuation
AI startup TypeSafe AI completed a financing of about $870 million led by Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, at a $7.5 billion valuation.
Its AI model Jev gained traction within weeks of launch. Co-founder Diogo Almeida said the company drew attention from executives, developers, and investors after a launch video went viral. He added that Jev is now used by about one-third of Fortune 500 companies and passed 1 million users within days.
Arena raises $200 million
AI model evaluation platform Arena completed a new $200 million financing round at a $3.1 billion valuation, nearly double the $1.7 billion valuation it carried in January. Lightspeed Venture Partners and Khosla Ventures led the round, with Salesforce Ventures and Dell Technologies Capital also participating.
Arena grew out of the Chatbot Arena research project at the University of California, Berkeley, and is known for its public large-model rankings. The company said annualized revenue reached $100 million in June.
Manus parent Butterfly Effect raises more than $500 million
According to Butterfly Effect's official WeChat account, the parent company of Manus recently completed a new financing round of more than $500 million. Boyu Capital and IDG Capital co-led the round, while existing investors Tencent, Sequoia China, and ZhenFund also participated.
The company also said hiring continues in both domestic and overseas markets.
Nous Research raises $90 million at a $1.5 billion valuation
Nous Research, the developer of the open-source agent Hermes, said it raised $90 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. The company plans to bring its open-source AI assistant tools to enterprise users. It previously launched Hermes as a local and cloud AI agent with built-in capabilities including search, coding, and image understanding, and said the system can expand its abilities by learning from user activity.
Hadrian raises $40 million
AI security company Hadrian announced a $40 million financing round co-led by Forgepoint Capital International and SmartFin, with existing investors including HV Capital, Motive Partners, Picus Capital, and Oetker Ventures also participating.
The company combines continuous exposure management with AI-agent penetration testing to simulate an attacker's perspective, helping enterprises identify external attack surfaces, validate real risks, and prioritize remediation. Total funding has now reached $65 million. Hadrian said the new capital will support expansion in Europe and the U.S., growth in engineering and research teams, and continued development of its AI-driven cybersecurity platform.
Catalyst raises $30 million in seed funding
AI trading agent startup Catalyst said it raised $30 million in seed funding led by Sequoia Capital, with Jump Trading, Peak XV, Lux Capital, AntiFund, Coinbase, and Premji Invest also joining the round.
The company was founded in 2025 by Justin Zheng and Dylan Iskandar. It aims to help retail investors design and execute trading strategies through AI agents. Users can express investment goals in natural language, after which the agent converts them into trading strategies and handles asset selection, cost optimization, and execution, though final trades still require user confirmation. The company has completed one test round with high-frequency trading users.
Mecka AI raises $60 million Series B
Robot data startup Mecka AI completed a $60 million Series B led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Nvidia, Microsoft's venture fund M12, Qualcomm, and Samsung Electronics.
Mecka AI focuses on collecting and analyzing human motion data to train humanoid and other robots. Earlier reports said the company was set to complete a Sequoia-led round at a valuation of about $500 million.
Ultra raises $50 million Series A
Warehouse robotics company Ultra said total funding has reached $62 million, including a $50 million Series A led by Framework Ventures with participation from Y Combinator. Its earlier $12 million seed round was co-led by Y Combinator and NextView Ventures. Ultra operates on a robotics-as-a-service model.
Investor update: USV launches a new $900 million fund
Venture capital firm Union Square Ventures said it has raised a new $900 million fund to back startups building at the frontier of large markets undergoing technological change.
USV said its previous core fund totaled $275 million. The larger vehicle is intended to let the firm lead more rounds in the AI era, support companies over longer periods, and invest in areas such as robotics, manufacturing, and energy that require more capital.
The firm also added several new team members, including general partner Michael Mignano, venture partner Jared Hecht, and product advisor partner Scott Belsky. They will join Fred Wilson, Rebecca Kaden, Nick Grossman, and Nikhil Raman as part of the future core investment team. Andy Weissman, Albert Wenger, John Buttrick, and Brad Burnham will continue supporting USV and its portfolio companies.