Investment and operations platform Alkemya Metacore has completed a $50 million pre-IPO funding round and plans to issue tokenized equity under the ticker ALKN to raise additional capital, according to Decrypt. Gumi Cryptos Capital led the round, with Maven 11, Metalayer, Joint Effects and Tribe Capital participating. The company holds about 7 million meters of ultra-high-purity nickel wire with 99.99% purity and a diameter of 0.025 millimeters. Independent verification values the asset at approximately $1.64 billion; the wire is in institutional custody in Lugano, Switzerland. Proceeds will be used to process the nickel wire into engineered mesh products applied in electromagnetic shielding, aerospace and defense, marine and desalination, power and industrial systems, semiconductors, green hydrogen and precious metal recovery. ALKN will be issued by Luxembourg-based Alkemya Metacore SCSp and is expected to trade on regulated venues such as Bitfinex Securities. Priced at $1 per token, the offering is open to institutional and professional investors until October 15. Under the return mechanism, investor capital is repaid first and receives a preferred return of 6% compounded annually. Commercial profits are split 80:20 between token holders and partners. The company says tokenized securities will help it reach global investors and provide 24/7 on-chain trading for traditional physical assets.

PANews’ weekly funding roundup showed a pickup in crypto deal activity from Aug. 3 to Aug. 9, with 12 disclosed blockchain financing events totaling more than $94.9 million. Capital was concentrated in infrastructure, stablecoins, real-world assets and centralized finance, while DePIN, GameFi and rewards platforms also logged fresh deals. The headline M&A transaction came from Mastercard, which said it had completed its acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK, a deal previously reported in March as being worth up to $1.8 billion. On the financing side, Yellow Card announced a $40 million strategic round backed by SC Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, Polychain Capital and Blockchain Capital. Other disclosed transactions included rounds for Blockspace, MAGNE.AI, InvestiFi, JPYC, Dow Protocol, Vangrid and Bundle. PANews also tracked a separate wave of AI and robotics funding, where large checks continued to cluster around infrastructure, cloud capacity, optical networking and enterprise agent platforms, with Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures and the newly launched 224 Ventures also stepping up commitments to the sector.

Fortune Protocol said it has completed a Pre-A financing round backed by a group of strategic investors, including MH Ventures, Mapleblock Capital, NewTribe Capital, Basics Capital, and Everwood Capital. The project said the new capital will be used in three main areas: upgrading Fortune Agent, expanding liquidity across prediction markets, and building out core ecosystem infrastructure. The team said the round marks a new phase of ecosystem expansion for Fortune. Its next priorities include advancing AI Agent capabilities, integrating more prediction markets, and growing its global community ahead of a planned token generation event, or TGE. Fortune Protocol describes itself as an AI-powered prediction derivatives protocol. According to the announcement, it aggregates liquidity from prediction markets to offer users a unified entry point for trading prediction assets, while also combining AI Agent functions for market analysis, trade opportunity discovery, and intelligent strategy execution.

PANews’ weekly roundup showed that blockchain funding stayed subdued from July 27 to Aug. 2, with six disclosed deals totaling $41.5 million, while capital in the broader private market continued to cluster around AI, robotics and computing infrastructure. In crypto, funding was concentrated in security, execution infrastructure and AI-related Web3 projects. V12 raised a $10 million seed round led by Electric Capital, Birdai Labs secured $4 million for onchain execution infrastructure, and Axis Robotics closed a $12 million seed round led by Hack VC. Perceptron Network and ALPHEA also announced financing tied to decentralized AI data and distributed AI infrastructure. Outside crypto, the biggest checks went to major AI model companies and robotics platforms. Amazon disclosed that it had completed a total of $50 billion in investment in OpenAI and separately invested $11.3 billion in Anthropic and $13.7 billion in OpenAI during the second quarter. Moonshot AI reportedly raised $3.5 billion at a $35 billion valuation. Simile, Fish Audio, Modus and Pangram all announced new rounds, while Standard Bots, Enigma and Quantum Dynamics highlighted continued investor appetite for physical AI and robotics deployment. The period also saw M&A activity from Metaplanet and Fanatics, alongside fresh financing in nuclear power, bot detection and AI-focused funds.

Perceptron Network, a decentralized AI data network, has raised $6.5 million in a strategic funding round, according to BlockBeats. Backers in the round include Sigma Capital, Selini Capital, QCP Capital, P2 Ventures, CoinDCX Ventures, Momentum6, DeFi Capital, Walrus Foundation, Aethir, Colosseum, GuruDev Capital, Tempo Finance, NewTribe Capital, Digital Consensus Fund and CodeCraft Capital. The company said the new capital will support the launch of its data discovery platform, expand contributor tools and reward infrastructure, and help the network work toward a target of 5 million nodes. Perceptron says it is building a single contributor network for global data collection, allowing AI companies and individual contributors to access, verify and monetize high-quality datasets. The network is already live and currently has more than 700,000 nodes.

Perceptron, a decentralized AI data network, said on July 31 that it has closed a $6.5 million strategic financing round. Backers in the round include Sigma Capital, Selini Capital, QCP Capital, P2 Ventures, CoinDCX Ventures, Momentum6, DeFi Capital, Walrus Foundation, Aethir, Colosseum, GuruDev Capital, Tempo Finance, NewTribe Capital, Digital Consensus Fund and CodeCraft Capital. The company said the new capital will be used to launch its data task platform, expand contributor tools and reward infrastructure, and support growth toward a 5 million-node network. Perceptron says it is building a unified network for real-world data collection by combining idle bandwidth, unique datasets and domain expertise. The goal is to help AI companies access verified, production-ready datasets in days rather than relying on centralized data scraping systems or closed data partnerships that many startups cannot access. In the near term, the project is focused on rolling out its data task platform, with more announcements expected next quarter.

Payward, the parent company of Kraken, is reportedly raising fresh capital at a $20 billion valuation as it accelerates acquisitions and IPO preparations. The company has already confidentially filed an S-1, and its co-CEO says the listing process is about 80% complete.

Days after integrating with Binance Wallet, ConcreteXYZ faced backlash over a 0.49% slippage on a $1M USDT-to-USDC swap, costing nearly $5,000. Users reported deposit balances shrinking. No official response yet.