Comcast Ventures is the venture capital affiliate of Comcast Corporation and partners with extraordinary entrepreneurs building transformative consumer and enterprise companies.

Comcast Ventures

Before you build your team, before you write your first line of code, before you even take your first check—that’s when boldstart gets to work. We collaborate with technical founders well before company creation, lead pre-product rounds at inception, and rally our developer-first and SaaS network to help turn bold ideas into category-creating iconic companies. We’ve been in the trenches with Snyk, Blockdaemon, Kustomer, BigID, Superhuman (and so many more) from day one. The investment firm was founded in 2010 by Ed Sim and is headquartered in Miami, FL with Partners in Boston, Bay Area, and London.

boldstart ventures

Genacast Ventures is a seed fund that invests up to $1 million in B2B startups in the northeastern US. Genacast was formed as a partnership between [Comcast Interactive Capital](http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/comcast-interactive-capital) and [Gil Beyda](http://www.crunchbase.com/person/gil-beyda).

Genacast Ventures

Plug and Play is a seed and early-stage investor focused on great teams leading emerging growth companies.  Plug and Play runs 12 industry-specific accelerator programs twice a year, that acts as a platform for major corporations and high quality startups to connect and collaborate.  Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Plug and Play participates in Seed, Angel and Series A funding where they often co-invest with their strategic partners. Through years of experience and as part of their network, Plug and Play has put together a world-class network of serial entrepreneurs, strategic investors, and industry leaders who actively assist the firm with its successful and growing investment portfolio.  SEED ROUND. Plug and Play participates in seed round investing through a program called Startup Camp. Startup Camp is a 10-week program based in Silicon Valley for top-notch entrepreneurs to work intensively on building out their business model. Select startups will refine their business models and prototypes with help from a combination of structured workshops, speaker series and mentorship sessions, as well as active coaching from their investment team. At the culmination of Startup Camp, founders will have crystalized their business plans and pitched their company to the venture capital community at EXPO Demo Day.''  ANGEL ROUND Plug and Play makes angel round investments throughout the year, sourced from their monthly Plug and Play Angels (PAPA) sessions. They are partnered with local angel investors in Silicon Valley who participate in PAPA to find the most promising startups and best new technologies.  SERIES A. Series A typical Series A round is in the range of $2 million to $10 million, and is intended to provide operating capital for the company for six months to two years. This round capitalizes the company as it develops its products, performs initial marketing and branding, acquires talent, and conducts other early-stage business operations. It is in this stage that Plug and Play will co-invest with over 180 venture capital partners.  Plug and Play has helped grow market leaders such as PayPal, Danger, Google, DropBox, LendingClub, Zoosk, SoundHound, CreditSesame, Skytree, and has over 400 more early-stage startups in its portfolio.

Plug and Play

Heavybit is the leading investor in developer-first startups that turn visions into movements, products into platforms, and contributors into communities. Our partnership, team, and community of technical founders and 600+ domain experts have an unequaled track record of nurturing developer-first startups.

Heavybit

Liquid2 Ventures provides technology startups with seed-stage investments and is based in San Francisco, California. The firm was founded in 2015 by Joe Montana, Mike Miller, and Michael Ma.

Liquid 2 Ventures

MState invests in distributed system (blockchain) companies that sell to enterprise.  We typically invest as part of a syndicate of investors.  Our investments to date have included infrastructure and application companies.  We look for experienced, technical founders that have built product (MVP okay) to solve big business problems.  We work with our portfolio companies to scale them faster, especially in everything GTM related.

MState - Not Making New Investments

Lerer Hippeau is a seed-stage venture capital firm founded and operated in New York City. Since 2010, they have invested in entrepreneurs with great ideas who aren’t afraid to do hard things. Their portfolio includes more than 400 enterprise and consumer businesses including Guideline, MIRROR, Blockdaemon, K Health, Allbirds, ZenBusiness, and Thrive. They’re experienced operators who invest early and stay in their founders’ corners as they build iconic companies.

Lerer Hippeau

Comcast Corporation is a global media and technology company with two primary businesses, Comcast Cable and NBCUniversal. Comcast Cable is one of the nation’s largest video, high-speed internet, and phone providers to residential customers under the XFINITY brand, and also provides these services to businesses. It also offers wireless security and automation services to residential customers under the XFINITY brand. NBCUniversal operates news, entertainment, and sports cable networks, the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, television production operations, television station groups, Universal Pictures, and Universal Parks and Resorts.

Comcast

Republic Labs is a growth-stage investment advisory focused on profitability and resiliency. Republic Labs works with high net-worth individuals and family offices to syndicate investment opportunities. It was founded in

Republic capital

Greenspring Associates is a global investment firm that provides commingled funds and customized partnership capabilities to a diverse group of institutions and individuals in North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia. Through a synergistic platform, the firm invests in established and emerging venture capital fund managers, in early and growth stage venture-backed companies and in secondary venture capital fund and secondary direct investments. Currently managing over $7.3 billion of committed capital, its dedicated investment team combines broad venture fund and direct investment expertise.

Greenspring Associates

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. provides investment banking, securities, and investment management services, as well as financial services to corporations, financial institutions, governments, and high-net-worth individuals worldwide. Its Investment Banking segment offers financial advisory services, including advisory assignments concerning mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, corporate defense, risk management, and restructurings and spin-offs; and underwriting services comprising public offerings and private placements of a range of securities, loans, and other financial instruments, and derivative transactions. The company’s Institutional Client Services segment provides client execution services, such as fixed income, currency, and commodities client execution related to making markets in interest rate products, credit products, mortgages, currencies, and commodities; and equities related to making markets in equity products, as well as executes and clears institutional client transactions on stock, options, and futures exchanges. This segment also engages in the securities services business providing financing, securities lending, and other brokerage services to institutional clients, including hedge funds, mutual funds, pension funds, and foundations. Its Investing and Lending segment originates longer-term loans; and invests in debt securities, loans, public and private equity securities, real estate, consolidated investment entities, distressed assets, currencies, commodities, and power generation facilities. The company’s investment management segment provides investment products and services, as well as offers wealth advisory services, including portfolio management and financial counseling, and brokerage and other transaction services.

Goldman Sachs

Hard Yaka makes early round investments in exchange space startups. Candidates are either verticals in particular categories of exchange markets or horizontals providing services (i.e. messaging or payments) across exchange sectors.

Hard Yaka

Uphold’s technology enables individuals and businesses to invest, exchange, spend and transfer 84 currencies (national & digital), commodities, equities, and more globally. The eWallet, reserve, payment and open API platform allows businesses and our 6+ million users a secure way to transact between supported assets instantly, almost anywhere in the world. We offer a unique trading experience - ‘Anything-to-Anything’ - allowing customers to trade directly between asset classes, saving time and money. Uphold connects new and old money systems through the integration of blockchain networks, Interledger, banking rails in over 35 countries, and credit & debit cards. The platform enables instant peer-to-peer and spending via the Uphold debit MasterCard - send or spend currencies, commodities, equities or any other asset we support in over 150 countries.

Uphold

Illuminate Financial is a venture capital firm backing companies that solve problems in financial services. Building an enterprise software company and selling solutions into financial institutions is hard. We have deep domain expertise, the right industry network and are a trusted partner to our portfolio companies as we help guide them through the early stages of their journey.

Illuminate Financial

Reciprocal is an early-stage venture firm backing the future of web3.

Reciprocal Ventures

CoinFund is a private cryptoasset investor and blockchain research and advisory firm that focuses on crypto and blockchain investments. The firm was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Brooklyn, United States.

CoinFund

BlockFi is a secured non-bank lender that offers USD loans to crypto-asset owners who collateralize the loan with their crypto-assets. Their products bring additional liquidity to the blockchain asset sector and meet the needs of both individuals and institutions holding blockchain assets. BlockFi holds clients' Bitcoin and Ether with a registered custodian and issues loans in USD to their bank accounts. Currently operating in beta launch, lending in 35 US states to retail investors and companies. BlockFi’s mission is to provide liquidity, transparency, and efficiency to digital financial markets by creating products that meet the needs of consumers and corporations across the globe. They leverage a sophisticated infrastructure that integrates with multiple blockchains, they plan to expand their product set based on their retail and institutional client's needs.

BlockFi

Kenetic is a proprietary trading and VC investment firm focused on digital assets and blockchain related companies. They have developed technology to facilitate their quantitative trading strategies and offer various digital asset related structured products to counterparts.

Kenetic

CoinShares is an investment firm. Their technology and infrastructure helps to enable access investment in the digital economy.  They provide financial products and services for investors. Their proprietary capital markets support crypto investors, electronic trading, and risk management.  They have a track record of regulated investment management in digital assets.

CoinShares

Borderless partners with early-stage founders to accelerate access, bootstrap adoption and create value across the Algorand and EdgeFi ecosystems.

Borderless Capital

Voyager is a crypto-asset broker that provides retail and institutional investors with a turnkey solution to trade crypto assets. Voyager offers investors execution, data, wallet, and custody services through its institutional-grade open architecture platform. The Voyager app offers a way to invest in 100 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a selection of altcoins in North America. The company was founded in 2017 and is based in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Voyager

Blockchain Ventures support and invest in distributed ledger technology (DLT) projects that advance the industry and provide positive societal impact. With support from Blockchain.com, Blockchain Ventures aims to contribute to the creation of an open, fair, and accessible financial system and promote DLT use-cases that are revolutionary beyond finance.

Blockchain.com Ventures

Warburg Serres Investments is a private equity group investing in blockchain infrastructure projects and Web3 applications.

Warburg Serres Investments

SoftBank Vision Fund is a subsidiary of Softbank Group that specializes in growth capital and social impact investments. Sectors that the fund invests in include the internet of things, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, communications infrastructure, telecoms, computational biology, biotech, cloud technologies and software, consumer internet businesses, financial technology, and mobile apps. The Fund is designed to be a catalyst for technology progress in anticipation that it will expand SoftBank's capabilities, accelerating progress towards SoftBank 2.0. It aims to invest in businesses and foundational platforms that SoftBank believes to revolutionize and innovate the world tomorrow.

SoftBank Vision Fund

Sapphire is a global software venture capital firm with more than $11 billion in AUM and team members across Austin, London, Menlo Park and San Francisco. For over a decade, Sapphire has partnered with visionary management teams and venture funds to back companies of consequence. Since its founding, Sapphire has invested in more than 170 companies globally resulting in more than 30 Public Listings and 45 acquisitions. The firm’s investment strategies — Sapphire Ventures, Sapphire Partners and Sapphire Sport — are focused on scaling companies and venture funds, elevating them to become category leaders. Sapphire’s Portfolio Growth team of experienced operators delivers a strategic blend of value-add services, tools and resources designed to support portfolio company leaders as they scale.

Sapphire Ventures

Matrix Capital Management (''Matrix'') is an investment management firm overseeing a focused portfolio of carefully selected public and private investments. Established in 1999, Matrix Capital was co-founded by David Goel and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Matrix has delivered attractive, long-term risk-adjusted returns through a concentrated portfolio of high-conviction investments in U.S. companies focused on semiconductors, software, generative artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks, and the technology convergence in life sciences. Prior to co-founding Matrix, Managing General Partner David Goel was a senior technology investor at Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management.

Matrix Capital Management

Morgan Creek Digital is a hedge fund backed by Morgan Creek Capital. Morgan Creek Digital specializes in the fields of digital asset management, financial services, and venture capital. It was founded in 2004 and headquartered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Morgan Creek Digital

Kraken is a cryptocurrency exchange that provides spot and futures trading between Bitcoin, Ethereum, and 40+ other digital assets. Its mission is to accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrency so that you and the rest of the world can achieve financial freedom and inclusion. Founded in 2011 and with over 7 million clients, Kraken is one of the world's largest, most successful bitcoin exchanges and we're growing faster than ever. Kraken's range of successful products is playing an important role in the mainstream adoption of crypto assets. Kraken is a marketplace for digital assets where buyers, sellers, traders, and speculators come together to exchange cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple against national currencies like USD, EUR, CAD, and JPY. Clients trading larger sizes benefit from its principal Over-the-Counter (OTC) desk and white glove service. Advanced traders and technical analysis wizards can take advantage of the company's professional charting tools.  Software engineers, botters, and hobbyist automators have available both REST and Websocket APIs with which trades can be made and market information obtained.  Kraken provides 24/7 live chat support for any questions you have about getting started.

Kraken

Crowd Venture Capital is committed to funding unique ideas and excellent teams around the world, with an emphasis on the Metaverse, NFT, and Web3. We invest in high-growth technology companies that solve key challenges in broad markets and assist entrepreneurs by using our global network of experts, operators, executives, and potential customers. When we see compelling Web2 and Web3 potential, we invest in both equity and digital assets. We enjoy what we do and are inspired and motivated by the people and organizations we support.

Crowd Venture Capital

Founded in 2001, Tiger Global Management, LLC (“Tiger Global”) is a New York-based investment firm pursuing a long-term approach to investing in leading, global public and private companies that leverage technological innovation. Tiger Global’s public equity business includes fundamentally oriented long/short, long-focused and crossover strategies, targeting investments in high-quality, public growth companies. The private equity business invests in early through late stage companies that pursue innovative approaches to new and existing industries, building on over 20 years of experience investing in hundreds of businesses in more than 30 countries with more than 90 portfolio company IPOs. With a strong track record investing across sectors and stages, Tiger Global aims to be a thought partner to companies and their management teams across their lifecycle in public and private markets. The Firm’s mission is to generate world-class returns for its investors and to do so in a way that makes its employees, partners and portfolio companies proud.

Tiger Global Management

StepStone provides investment services to institutional investors focused on achieving excess net (after fees) risk-adjusted private equity returns. StepStone builds private equity portfolios by accessing the market through a combination of fund investments, co-investments, and secondary purchases.

StepStone Group

Galaxy Digital operates as a technology-driven financial services and investment management firm that provides institutions and direct clients with a full suite of financial solutions spanning the digital assets ecosystem. Galaxy Digital operates five synergistic business lines: Trading, Asset Management, Principal Investments, Investment Banking, and Mining.

Galaxy Digital

Blockdaemon

Disrupting the traditional financial system using blockchain

Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

Alluvial offers application programming interfaces (API) that enable enterprises and institutional clients to integrate staking into their digital asset exchanges and DeFi protocols. The company also develops “Liquid Collective,” a DeFi protocol that enables users to tokenize their staked positions on the Ethereum blockchain and use them as collateral for loans or to transfer ownership. These tokenized positions are represented by “LsETH,” which can be held by users to automatically restake their network rewards.Furthermore, the platform offers a “Slashing Coverage Program,” which provides users with insurance coverage for network-wide events such as outages and node operator failures. This is provided for by Nexus Mutual, the protocol’s treasury allocation, and node operators.Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2024, the company operated an ecosystem of DeFi partners, which included Fireblocks, BitGo, Hashnote, Bitcoin Suisse, and Twinstake, via its Liquid Collective platform.Funding and financialsIn July 2023, Alluvial <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/20041">raised USD 12 million</a> in Series A funding co-led by Ethereal Ventures and Variant.

Bringing the benefits of blockchain to the enterprise

Enterprise Blockchain Solutions

HyperNative is a Web3 security company that provides real-time monitoring and risk prevention solutions for blockchain-based businesses and end users. The company's platform uses proprietary machine learning models and anomaly detection to monitor on-chain and off-chain data sources, enabling it to predict and mitigate over 200 risks before they materialize, including smart contract hacks, bridge security issues, and market manipulations. As of September 2024, the platform offered coverage across over 40 blockchains.&nbsp;The company's technology allows customizable monitoring rules and actions, enabling users to receive precise attack intelligence and automatically block potential threats. Additionally, the company offers Security Oracle, an integrated on-chain solution that can identify malicious addresses and enforce compliance policies, and Screener, a solution that analyzes address risk and provides recommendations on whether to allow or deny an interaction.Key customers and partnershipsAs of September 2024, the platform has secured over USD 100 million worth of customer funds from over 100 Web3 projects, such as Balancer, Chainalysis, Chainlink, Circle, Consensys, Fidelity Digital Assets, Galaxy, Solana, Starknet, and Uniswap.&nbsp;

0G Labs is a technology business that specializes in blockchain technology, emphasizing decentralization for a range of industries and societal issues.

Alluvial Finance is a software development company that provides robust solutions.

Chaos Labs is a fully automated on-chain economic security system that allows crypto protocols to optimize risk management and capital efficiency while safeguarding user funds. Chaos Labs offers a more secure and safe operating environment for crypto protocols. Chaos Labs uses technology and risk management expertise to help protocols navigate the often volatile crypto markets and make informed decisions. The platform is currently available for protocols on the Ethereum network, with plans to expand to other blockchains such as Terra, NEAR, and Polygon in the future.

Hypernative is a digital startup that keeps an eye on off-chain data sources and uses all its machine-learning models to accurately identify dangers to the community, economy, and governance. It blocks zero-day cyber threats, governance, and economic concerns, and shields Web3 apps, protocols, and administrators of digital assets from substantial losses.

Hyperlane platform helps developers connect applications across blockchains.

Tres is the creator of a financial platform for managing and monitoring Web3 Finance. The platform supports financial procedures such as reconciliation, balance computation, audit, and reporting for Web3 assets from on-ramp to off-ramp, reducing manual spreadsheet work for finance teams.

Gnosis provides digital asset storage solutions. It is a cryptocurrency EVM wallet. They create an infrastructure for a variety of decentralized applications that act as predictive tools, sources of information and standards for assets in the market.

StakeWise is an open-source protocol for capital-efficient staking on Ethereum 2.0. The protocol abstracts away the technical complexity of running staking infrastructure and removes entry barriers for the users, allowing to generate yield from Eth2 staking with just a couple of clicks. All Ether staked through the protocol is tokenized, enabling users to apply their staked capital across other Decentralized Finance Applications and making their stake liquid. StakeWise was founded in 2018.

Blockdaemon is a blockchain deployment facilitator that manages nodes and payment rails for blockchain networks. Their solution is fully portable, it allows its user to switch networks and chains with the click of a button, so they don't have to worry about picking the perfect network configuration from day one. They support the blockchain developer ecosystem with best-of-breed dev-ops advice. Blockdaemon was incorporated in 2017 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.

Blockdaemon is a blockchain infrastructure company providing node management services. It offers node-as-a-service for developers to connect to several blockchain networks through its Ubiquity API without requiring them to own and manage nodes in-house. The company also provides access to native blockchain APIs, which allows developers to explore a network in detail, along with node infrastructure for blockchain networks and validators to stake and scale operations. Blockdaemon supports more than 40 blockchain networks globally through cloud and bare metal servers.

A decentralized version of the web powered by the blockchain

Web3 Ecosystem

Blockchain adoption in Asia Pacific will expand into SMEs — Blockdaemon

Haven1

Animoca Brands

Republic Crypto

KuCoin Ventures

0G Labs

Hack VC

Delphi Ventures

Abstract

Samsung NEXT

dao5

NGC Ventures

gumi Cryptos Capital (gCC)

Alchemy

IBC Group

LongHash Ventures

Polygon

MV Global

Coin Bureau

OKX Ventures

Foresight Ventures

nonce Classic

NoLimit Holdings

Bankless Ventures

Kudasai

Blockchain Builders Fund

Stanford Blockchain

Awaken Finance

Alluvial Finance

Variant

Ethereal Ventures

A.Capital Ventures

Fenbushi Capital

Nascent Capital

Robot Ventures

IOSG Ventures

Avon Ventures

BH Digital

Organizations and protocols that allow individuals to lend their crypto assets and take out collateralized or uncollateralized loans from to/from these projects

Chaos Labs

Galaxy Venture Capital

PayPal Ventures

Bessemer Venture Partners

General Catalyst

Lightspeed Venture Partners

Third Prime

Theta Capital

OpenSea

Coinbase Ventures

Quiet Capital

Castle Island Ventures

Primitive Ventures

Hashkey Exchange

Tioga Capital Partners

Mischief

Jump Crypto

Avalanche

Folius Ventures

Firsthand.vc

Wintermute Ventures

Lyrik Ventures

Hypernative

IBI Tech Fund

Charge Ventures

CMT Digital

Nexo

Companies that leverage blockchain technology to provide cybersecurity and identity management solutions for enterprises

Hyperlane

Circle

Figment

Hypersphere Ventures

Kraken Ventures

Asymmetric

Tres

F2 Venture Capital

New Form Capital

MANTIS Venture Capital

Gnosis

GSR Ventures

UOB Venture

Blockchain.com

Blockchain Capital

Digital Currency Group

ConSensys Ventures

Signum Capital

Arweave

RockawayX

Global Coin Research

FalconX

ParaFi Capital

Collider

Zee Prime Capital

Greenfield

MetaCartel Ventures

SCB 10X

Bixin Ventures

A&T Capital

Polymorphic Capital

Alameda Research

StakeWise

Blockdaemon is a blockchain infrastructure company providing node management services. It offers node-as-a-service for developers to connect to several blockchain networks through its Ubiquity API without requiring them to own and manage nodes in-house. The company also provides access to native blockchain APIs, which allows developers to explore a network in detail, along with node infrastructure for blockchain networks and validators to stake and scale operations. Blockdaemon supports more than 40 blockchain networks globally through cloud and bare metal servers.The company also provides RPC archival nodes for zkSync, a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum. These nodes are designed to improve the stability, security, and resilience of the zkSync network by providing better infrastructure services.In July 2022, Blockdaemon acquired Sepior, a data and digital asset security company focused on institutional-grade cryptographic key management and protection services, for an undisclosed sum. Through the acquisition, Blockdaemon aimed to improve its staking services by providing institutional customers the option of custodial and non-custodial wallet solutions for digital assets.Funding and financialsIn January 2022, Blockdaemon raised USD 207 million in Series C funding co-led by Sapphire and Tiger Global at a post-money valuation of USD 3.25 billion. It aimed to use the new capital to complete its node-stack product suite and for strategic acquisitions. The company had also planned to use the funds to launch its own DeFi fund to make structured investments in the crypto and blockchain ecosystem.

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.

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