Funding Wrap: Visa-linked Allium announces $16.5M raise, Chainbase announces $15M Series A

This week saw some notable, double-digit (in the millions, mind you) raises. 

We saw some more traditional finance-linked names raise significant sums, while a crypto-AI startup announced a multi-million dollar seed round. 

But leading the pack this week is Chainbase’s $15 million raise. 

The omnichain data network announced it raised the sum in a Series A with participation from firms including Tencent Investment Group, Hash Global and Bodl Ventures. 

“Initially, Chainbase utilized chain abstraction to unify data across all chains. With the rise of AI , we gradually realized that Chainbase’s years of accumulated onchain data can significantly contribute to high-quality models, acting like alchemists to bring intelligence to the crypto space,” said Matrix Partners partner Harry Man. 

Read more: Empire Newsletter: Is crypto vs AI a zero-sum game?

The firm is mostly made up of data scientists and machine learning engineers, the press release stated. 

“The fresh funding will be instrumental in the development and launch of a pioneering first crypto world model designed to take onchain data intelligence and data-drive models to the advanced level. Moreover, the funding will be further utilized for the growth and adoption of the omnichain data network and AI capabilities, ideally a future where data can be accessed with minimal barriers in the most seamless manner,” it continued.

Roughly 15,000 developers and over 6,000 projects are supported by the network. 

In other news, cloud service provider Nirvana Labs announced a $4 million raise for a seed round. The firm, earlier this year, told Blockworks that it raised $1.7 million in pre-seed funding. 

It has firms such as Chainlink, BitGo and Avalanche on its client list. CEO Dan Burke told Blockworks’ Jack Kubinec that it aims to cater to Web3 clients in the hopes of enticing projects away from Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.

“Our growth is primarily from Web3 companies exploring bare metal alternatives to general purpose clouds. Nirvana Cloud provides dedicated resources for compute and handles the intense data storage and retrieval requirements of blockchain workloads, slashing cloud costs across the board,” Burke told Blockworks.

The raise was co-led by Castle Island Ventures and RW3 Ventures. BitGo’s Ecosystem Fund and Third Earth were among the participants. 

Burke, in a press release, said that the company’s revenue increased 650% this year, which makes AWS and GCP “ripe for the picking.”

“This funding will allow us to enhance our specialized cloud services, providing a Web3-specific alternative to conventional cloud providers,” said founder Devin Bandera.

Other notable rounds

• Allium, a blockchain data platform with ties to Visa and Stripe, raised $16.5 million in a Series A fund led by Theory Ventures. Kleiner Perkins and Amplify Partners also participated in the round.
• Decentralized AI infrastructure platform Mira raised $9 million in seed funding. The round was led by BITKRAFT Ventures and Framework Ventures. Other participants included SALT Fund and Crucible.
• Bitrue Ventures launched a $40 million investment fund. It seeks to develop projects across crypto, including AI crypto crossovers, GameFi, real-world assets and DePINs. 

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