Jump Capital is a thesis-led, sector-focused, and operating-centric venture capital firm specializing in Seed/Series A. Jump invests in data-driven technology companies within the FinTech, B2B SaaS, IT/Data Infrastructure, and Media sectors. With offices in Chicago and New York, Jump provides advocacy and support through a platform of institutional-level resources for entrepreneurs.  Jump's philosophy is to align with talented management teams that desire a trusted partner with real-world operating experience and a firm with an operating platform targeting initial investment checks between $2M to $10M.

Jump Capital

Tribe Capital is a top-quartile venture capital firm focused on capturing a perpetual edge in venture and crypto using data science. The team is made up of investors, engineers and scientists who use artificial intelligence (“AI”) and data science to model venture-backed private companies. Beyond investment capital, Tribe deploys these AI tools to separate signal from noise, helping our companies understand their businesses better.  Our data-informed strategy includes an underwriting infrastructure and a quantitative analysis tool called the “Magic 8-ball.” We leverage these tools to provide deep insight on factors driving growth and how to accelerate sustainable growth, honed through years of developing similar products at major tech and finance players like Lyft, Yahoo, Facebook, and Bridgewater Associates.   Our team uses these tools to measure quantitative product-market fit, so we can more effectively assess and accelerate what Tribe refers to as “N-of-1” companies - companies with the potential to be 10-100x growth opportunities, while minimizing loss ratio by a large degree.  Tribe Capital has $1.6 billion in assets under management and has made notable investments in Apollo.io, Carta, Docker, Kraken, Instabase, Relativity Space, and Shiprocket.

Tribe Capital

HashKey Capital

Protocol Labs is a research, development, and deployment lab for network protocols. Protocol Labs creates software systems that tackle significant challenges, aiming to solve them with new technology breakthroughs, great user experience design, and an open-source approach to creation.

Protocol Labs

Quiet Capital is a technology investment firm.

Quiet Capital

Chorus One is operating validating nodes and staking services for Proof-of-Stake blockchain networks. Our products enable token holders to earn interest on their cryptoassets and to shape the evolution of the decentralized networks they are invested in.

Chorus One

GSR has nine years of deep crypto market expertise as a market maker, ecosystem partner and active, multi-stage investor. GSR sources and provides spot and non-linear liquidity in digital assets for token issuers, institutional investors, miners, and leading cryptocurrency exchanges. GSR employs over 300 people around the globe, and its trading technology is connected to 60 trading venues, including the world's leading DEXs.  We have a culture of approaching complex problems with tenacity and imagination. We build long-term relationships by offering exceptional service, expertise and trading capabilities tailored to the specific needs of our clients.

North Island Ventures is a cryptocurrency investment company. The company believes that the emergence of new enabling technologies creates the best technology investment opportunities. Enabling technologies are innovation platforms; they provide a set of new capabilities that entrepreneurs can use and combine to create applications and experiences that did not previously exist.

North Island Ventures

Alliance is the leading Web3 accelerator and founder community.

Alliance DAO

ChainLayer strives for healthy consensus and security on proof of stake networks as well as providing fast, secure, and accurate oracle data.

Chainlayer

Finality Capital Partners is an investment firm.

Finality Capital Partners

SMAPE Capital is an interdisciplinary team, based out of Europe, investing without global limits

SMAPE Capital

We are crypto engineers and builders who have been exploring crypto since 2012 when we successfully built Colored Coins – the world’s first digital assets protocol on top of Bitcoin.   Node is a thesis-focused, long-term cryptocurrency fund investing in pre-market/market token-based projects.  As well as providing capital, we take the role of founding participants in new protocols and networks.  We help teams bootstrap the network, solve token economic challenges and provide liquidity when it is most needed.  We add technical value to support our entrepreneurs and networks as they go to market and continue growth.

Node Capital

Dispersion Capital is an early-stage fund focusing on web3 at the pre-seed and seed stages.

Dispersion Capital

FunFair Ventures is a venture capital business .Funfair Ventures funds early stage blockchain projects with a focus on both equity and tokens.

FunFair Ventures

Interop

Compa is an early stage venture capital fund that invests in international and immigrant founders building in web3.

Compa Capital

YTWO is a global international venture capital and assets management fund that invests in early-stage crypto startups.

YTWO

Coinvestor Ventures provides advisory services related to crypto Investment.

Coinvestor Ventures

Backing Web 3 companies who are evolving our lives into a borderless censorship resistant society with ownership rights and financial independence at its core

Kommune.one

Lava Network

Lava is building the Amazon for data across web3, Lava is the modular data access network for scaling access to any blockchain.  Anyone can add in-demand chains and APIs as modules to Lava, with each module being served by a network of node operators competing to offer the best service. RPC is the first service supported by the protocol and already helps developers unlock innovation across 30+ chains.  By leveraging modular architecture and a peer-to-peer network of node operators, Lava powers the universal and performant infrastructure layer for developers to build whatever, wherever.

Lava Network is a developer of modular blockchain infrastructure. It offers remote procedure calls (RPCs) and application programming interface (APIs) called Gateway, giving developers access to fast and accurate access to over 30 blockchain networks by pairing it with the best node available. It supports networks such as Avalanche, Ethereum, Axelar, Optimism, and Celo. In addition, the company provides an SDK that allows developers to build dApps with access to multiple blockchains supported by the Lava system using JavaScript or TypeScript.

A decentralized version of the web powered by the blockchain

Web3 Ecosystem

Lava Network launches public mainnet and airdrops 55 million tokens

Lava Network is a developer of modular blockchain infrastructure. It offers remote procedure calls (RPCs) and application programming interface (APIs) called Gateway, giving developers access to fast and accurate access to over 30 blockchain networks by pairing it with the best node available. It supports networks such as Avalanche, Ethereum, Axelar, Optimism, and Celo. In addition, the company provides an SDK that allows developers to build dApps with access to multiple blockchains supported by the Lava system using JavaScript or TypeScript.Funding and financialsIn <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26663">February 2024</a>, the company raised USD 15 million in a seed funding round led by Jump Capital, Hashkey Capital, and Tribe Capital. The funds were earmarked to launch its mainnet, which was scheduled for release in 1H 2024.

NEAR Protocol is an open-source layer-1 blockchain launched in October 2020. The blockchain uses a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism to validate transactions. Its native token is NEAR, which can be used to pay for transactions and storage on the blockchain, while also allowing token holders to participate in the platform’s governance process. In August 2024, NEAR launched a significant upgrade called "<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/32890">Nightshade 2.0</a>" to enhance scalability and usability. This update is a major step in integrating sharding into NEAR's core architecture, which divides the blockchain into smaller segments, allowing the network to process more transactions at a lower cost. Validators no longer need to store shard states locally; instead, they retrieve "state witnesses" from the network to validate changes. This improves shard performance and boosts the network’s ability to support more shards.NEAR allows users to sign up for a wallet (account) using unique human-readable names (e.g., johndoe.near, in comparison to cryptographic and randomly generated private keys, which is a characteristic of chains such as Ethereum), which in turn enables easy sign-ins for dApps for users and improves the overall usability of the blockchain. The platform also allows developers to prepay gas fees for first-time users, allowing the latter to interact with a dApp for free. NEAR also offers the Rainbow Bridge, which allows users to transfer ERC-20 and NEAR tokens or any other digital asset between the Ethereum and NEAR blockchain. In addition, the platform provides tools such as SDKs, CLIs, and APIs for developers to create dApps on its blockchain. In addition, NEAR allocates 30% of the transaction fees to developers to encourage them to build applications on its platform, with the remainder being burnt.The protocol also incorporates <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/32771">Chain Signatures</a>, a technology that allows smart contracts to sign transactions across multiple blockchains without relying on cross-chain bridges. This aims to simplify multichain dApp development by reducing the need for multiple wallets and manual bridging, as well as enhancing user experience and increasing asset liquidity and utility across blockchains.As of July 2022, NEAR had 100 validators on its blockchain, which it expected to increase in proportion to the number of transactions. The platform uses an auction system to select and determine the seat price for its validators every epoch (time interval of 12 hours). The platform claims to be able to scale infinitely by adding more validators owing to its underlying architecture.Key customers and partnershipsIn June 2021, NEAR joined ICON’s Blockchain Transmission Protocol (BTP), which seeks to improve cross-chain communication. The partnership allowed data to be transferred between the NEAR blockchain and other BTP partners such as Polkadot and Harmon. Moreover, NEAR partnered with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/23393">Nym Technologies </a>to integrate end-to-end encryption and privacy safeguards into the NEAR blockchain ecosystem.In addition, NEAR partnered with Ardana, a stablecoin and decentralized exchange (DEX) liquidity pool built on the Cardano blockchain in November 2021, to build a bridge to support integrations and token transfers between the NEAR and Cardano blockchains. It had also planned to enable cross-chain smart contract functionality and allow the NEAR token to be used as collateral on Ardana to mint stablecoins in the future.

NEAR

Ava Labs develops the open-source layer-1 blockchain, Avalanche. The Avalanche network architecture contains three separate blockchains in order to address the decentralization, security, and scalability limitations of blockchains. These include 1) the Exchange Chain (X-Chain), which is the default blockchain on which assets are created and exchanged and also includes Avalanche’s native token–AVAX; 2) the Contract Chain (C-Chain)—which is based on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)—allows for the creation and execution of smart contracts with cross-chain interoperability; and 3) the Platform Chain (P-Chain), which coordinates validators and enables the creation and management of subnets (a sovereign network that defines its own rules for membership and tokenomic). Avalanche uses a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and is able to execute 4,500 transactions per second. As of December 2022, ~1,000 projects were built on Avalanche, including DeFi projects like Tether, SushiSwap, Chainlink, and Circle. As of the same date, the network processed on average two million daily transactions and was secured by more than 1,200 validators.Ava Labs launched Core, a dedicated non-custodial crypto wallet for AVAX as a browser extension, through which users are able to browse dApps on the Avalanche blockchain. In April 2023, the company announced plans to launch “ <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17583">Evergreen Subnets </a>,” a suite of blockchain deployments, tooling, and customization services specifically designed for financial institutions to run their own private, permissioned chains with approved parties. In addition, financial institutions will be able to communicate and transfer data with other subnets through Avalanche’s native communication protocol Avalanche Warp Messaging (AWM) without relying on any third parties. It also launched <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18842">AvaCloud </a>in May 2023, a no-code Web3 launchpad that assists businesses in building fully managed blockchain ecosystems. AvaCloud consists of four main components: an automated blockchain builder, managed validators, comprehensive data tools, and chain interoperability within Avalanche subnets.Key customers and partnershipAvalanche has partnered with several cloud services providers to improve its network such as <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15079">Alibaba Cloud </a>(December 2022) to improve its infrastructure and support for its validators. Users of the Avalanche blockchain can launch new validator nodes using Alibaba Cloud’s plug-and-play infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), while dApp developers can use the latter’s storage and computing resources for the efficient running of their dApps. It also collaborated with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15640?industryIds=144">AWS </a>(January 2022) to scale and improve blockchain adoption and support its dApp ecosystem, while also enabling one-click node deployments through the AWS marketplace.

Ava Labs

Based in Australia, Immutable is a developer of blockchain-based video games and a provider of a Web3 game development platform. The company develops and publishes its games through Immutable Game Studio, and released its first game, Gods Unchained, in March 2021. The game is a NFT strategy card game, and had ~80,000 active players as of January 2022. It also claimed that over USD 25 million of Gods Unchained digital assets have been traded as of the same date. In February 2024, the company launched the mobile version of Gods Unchained, available on Google Play and Apple App Store. Immutable launched its second game, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29491">Guild of Guardians </a>, in May 2024 to over 1 million pre-registered users. It is a mobile role-playing game set in a fantasy world on the brink of destruction, where players must form teams to battle against evil Dreads.Its Web3 game development platform, Immutable X, provides a SDK that offers APIs and smart contracts to allow developers to leverage ready-made Web3 infrastructure to quickly build and deploy blockchain-based games. These include an onboarding solution (non-custodial wallet) called <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16041">Passport </a>, transaction infrastructure, and NFT minting tools. The platform also consists of a developer hub which allows developers to launch and manage their projects in one-place and obtain related performance analytics.In addition, Immutable X also acts as a layer-2 scaling solution on the Ethereum blockchain. It uses <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/607497">StarkWare's </a>StarkEx roll-up technology and can process 9,000 transactions per second, with zero gas fees, while claiming to be carbon-neutral. Its native token IMX can be used to pay for transactions as well as stake and govern the network. Notable companies building on Immutable X include GameStop, TikTok, OpenSea, Ember Sword, Illuvium, GreenPark Sports, and Vee Friends (Gary Vee).Key customers and partnershipsImmutable partnered with Mineloader to develop Guild of Guardians, and it has also collaborated with several game developers, including Turner Sports and Kongregate, to build Web3 games on the Immutable X platform. Furthermore, Immutable partnered with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/22566">Amazon Web Services (AWS)</a> to develop infrastructure solutions to assist companies in developing and scaling blockchain-based games, and <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24637">Amazon Prime Gaming</a> to list in-game content for Gods Unchained in the latter’s platform. This partnership also aimed to introduce the game to a broader audience circle through Amazon's platform, which boasts over 200 million Prime Gaming members. It also collaborated with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/25892">Axelar</a> to integrate games built on Immutable's zkEVM into the Axelar network to enhance user onboarding across blockchain.The company collaborated with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/786111">Polygon</a> to launch its <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24881">zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine</a> (zkEVM) scaling solution to bypass the scaling limitations of the Ethereum blockchain and promote Web3 gaming. This network allows developers to completely abstract transaction fees, allowing a frictionless player onboarding and improved user experience.

Immutable

Mythical Games is a video game studio building games based on blockchain technology, playable NFTs, and play-to-earn game economies. The company developed two games—NFL Rivals and Blankos Block Party. The latter was discontinued in December 2023 after its launch in June 2022.In May 2022, NFL and the NFL Players Association partnered with Mythical Games to develop an NFT-based video game NFL Rivals. The game was launched in 2023, with players taking part in arcade-style gameplay, assuming the role of NLF general manager. They can collect and trade players represented as NFTs on the secondary market via the iOS and Android apps, as well as Mythical’s web-based marketplace. In addition, a unique feature of the game is the “squad system,” which enables players to team up with fellow players to compete with others.Mythical Games also enables other game developers and publishers to build or integrate blockchain-based play-to-earn economies into their games through The Mythical Platform. The platform also includes built-in regulatory KYC/AML compliance and indemnity as well as a verified wallet for transacting both real and cryptocurrencies. Further, the company also offers a marketplace that enables users to sell and trade their digital assets.The Mythical Platform is built on an EVM-compatible sidechain Mythical Chain, which uses a proof-of-authority consensus mechanism to validate transactions. The chain also offers interoperability features, allowing players to transfer and trade NFTs across multiple blockchains. It also claims the minting of NFTs and integrating the marketplace over its platform does not require mining.It acquired <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15966">DMarket </a>–a digital gaming asset marketplace–in January 2023, and utilized its technology to launch an improved version of its own marketplace (Mythical Marketplace 2.0), with features such as a blended payment gateway and AML and fraud protection systems.Key customers and partnershipsAs of June 2023, the company reported to have achieved daily gross sales exceeding USD 1 million and gained more than 2.5 million new users over the past year. Moreover, it expects to reach over 20 million player accounts across its entire game portfolio by the end of 2023, primarily propelled by NFL Rivals and the upcoming release of Nitro Nation World Tour.The Mythical Platform’s first developer partners were announced by the company in November 2021, which includes 1) CCG Games to create Epic Spell Wars: Magic Fight, a trading card game; 2) Creative Mobile to create Nitro Nation – World Tour, a racing game; and 3) Abstraction Games to create a new action strategy title. These were slated to be released in 2023.Funding and financialsIn November 2021, Mythical Games raised USD 150 million in a Series C round led by Andreessen Horowitz at a valuation of ~USD 1.3 billion. Additionally, it raised <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19719">USD 37 million in a Series C1 </a>funding round led by Scytale Digital in June 2023, at a similar valuation. This funding round is expected to close later in 2023 and reach USD 57 million-67 million. It had planned to utilize the fresh funds toward initiatives that will drive profitability within the next year and expand its games and infrastructure to reach a larger audience.

Mythical Games

Storj Labs developed the Storj Decentralized Cloud Storage (DCS) network that works by compressing, encrypting, and splitting files into more than 80 smaller pieces to distribute and store them across a global network of individual storage nodes, which are excess hardware space rented out by individuals in return for a fee. Storj audits its network through random file verification every hour, which ensures its files are consistently being hosted by its nodes; it automatically reconstitutes the data when it is required by the user. The company claims to have more than 10,000 active nodes with over 6 petabytes of available storage capacity spread across the world, as of August 2022. It uses its native token STORJ, which is used by customers to pay for providers of decentralized storage.Key customers and partnershipsStorj partnered with <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/792614">Matter Lab’s </a>zkSync Era ( <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18986">in May 2023 </a>) to integrate the latter's zero-knowledge roll-up technology into its cloud storage platform to optimize transaction speed, reduce gas fees, and improve the overall efficiency of the payment process. Additionally, the partnership enables EVM-compatible composability for decentralized storage payments, providing customers with increased flexibility and a wider range of customization possibilities. As part of the development, Storj also had plans to develop and maintain two open-source libraries, Crypto-Batch-Payment and Storjscan, which will focus on creating a seamless onboarding experience for its customers on the zkSync Era network.

Storj

Developers of video games that use elements of blockchain technology, allowing gamers to earn cryptocurrency by playing games. They can either convert it into real money or purchase in-game assets.

A decentralized alternative to traditional social networks that operate on independently run servers on the blockchain. These are community-owned and reward user participation.

An alternative storage system in which data is encrypted, segmented, and stored on multiple nodes across the blockchain rather than a single server.

Developers of dApps for use in industries such as travel, health, and fitness, which are yet to reach wider adoption.

Providers of wallets that allow users to purchase and store the cryptocurrencies/tokens required to interact with web3 apps, along with app browsers for users to browse and access dApps.

Also known as layer-1 networks, these include developers of the base blockchain network.

Also known as layer-2 solutions, this includes providers of scaling solutions, such as sidechains, state channels, and rollups, which improve the speed and throughput of transactions occurring in layer-1 blockchain networks.

Platforms that provide tools such as SDKs, blockchain node infrastructure, and bridges for developers to create, host, debug, and add extra functionality to dApps on one or many blockchains.

Includes companies that form the Web3 ecosystem

Web3 is based on blockchain tech, a key enabler of the industry

GenAI tools help develop smart contracts and query the blockchain for data

Providers of node-as-a-service and SDKs to build dApps operate under this model

<div>
 
 Lava Network, a blockchain infrastructure developer, managed to raise USD 15 million in a seed funding round. The round was led by Jump Capital, Hashkey Capital, and Tribe Capital, with further contributions from North Island Ventures, Dispersion Capital, and Alliance DAO, among others.
 The newly garnered funds will be channeled into the launch of its mainnet that's set for release in the first half of 2024.
 Prior to its mainnet's impending launch, Lava has set in motion a reward program called "Magma." This initiative rewards users with points when they switch their RPC connection to Lava.
 Lava Network was founded in 2022 and specializes in blockchain data retrieval and data transfer using remote procedure calls (RPCs) and indexing. Currently in the testnet phase, the company introduced an incentivized public RPC service on NEAR, Evmos, Axelar. It plans to incorporate more chains in the future.
 
</div>

Lava Network

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