Crypto VC funding: Chaos Labs tops our roundup with $55m series A

This week saw over $130 million raised across various crypto VC funding rounds.

Here’s a breakdown of the activity from Monday, Aug. 12 through Saturday, Aug. 17:

Chaos Labs, $55 million

On-chain risk management company Chaos Labs raised $55 million in a series A round.

Haun Ventures led the effort. Lightspeed Venture Partners, F-Prime Capital, and Wintermute also participated.

According to the team behind Chaos Labs, the project has tripled its customer base over the past year, with over 20 protocols, including Aave (AAVE) and GMX (GMX), relying on its technology. 

To date, the platform has $860 billion in cumulative trading volume and $25 billion in loans. The team said it will use the new funding to improve real-time, contextualized risk management for DeFi protocols.

Sahara AI, $43 million

Sahara AI, a decentralized AI blockchain platform, grabbed headlines by securing $43 million in funding co-led by Binance Labs, Pantera Capital, and Polychain Capital.

An array of notable investors also contributed, including Samsung, Sequoia Capital, and Matrix Partners.

Since its founding in April 2023, Sahara AI has grown rapidly, partnering with over 35 tech giants including Microsoft and Amazon.

The company aims to disrupt the centralized AI landscape by creating a more “equitable” decentralized ecosystem. 

As such, the funding will further their mission to ensure fair compensation for contributors, protect data sovereignty, and promote inclusivity across all stages of AI development.

Sling Money, $15 million

Fintech startup Sling Money collected $15 million in a series A round, per a report from Axios.

Union Square Ventures, Ribbit Capital, and Slow Ventures led the initiative following a $5-million seed round.

The Sling Money platform uses stablecoin technology to enable money transfers across more than 50 countries in Europe and Africa.

Users of the platform can send money instantly, whether to others, between their own accounts, or even to non-Sling users.

Transfers are conducted using Pax Dollar, a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services.

Essential, $11 million

Essential, the company behind the first declarative blockchain, also had a share of this week’s VC funding pie.

The company secured $11 million in a series A round led by Archetype.

Other participants in the round included IOSG, Spartan, and Mirana, alongside a host of founders and angel investors from the web3 space. 

According to Essential, the funding will help accelerate the development of its blockchain, which is intended to reframe interactions in terms of outcomes rather than instructions.

Other notable crypto VC fundraising

Coinduit, a B2B cross-border payments platform, clinched $6 million in a seed extension round led by Helios Digital Ventures.

The capital injection will support the platform’s expansion into Africa, where it aims to help tackle the region’s cross-border payment challenges.

On its part, Ion Protocol raked in an extra $4.8 million after previously raising $2.2 million in another fundraising round. The fresh capital was provided by Gumi Capital, Cryptos, and more than 90 other investors. 

It now brings the total amount raised by the liquidity protocol, which specializes in staked and restaked assets, to $7 million.

According to an Aug. 12 post on X, the company will use the funds to develop Nucleus, a native yield primitive meant to address the monetization challenges faced by Ethereum (ETH) rollups.