Weekly Funding Roundup: 8 Projects Secure Funding, Total Raises Reach $223 Million (Mar 2-8)
- Core View: From March 2 to 8, 2025, while the number of global blockchain funding events slightly decreased, the total funding amount nearly doubled compared to the previous week. This indicates a concentration of capital towards large-scale projects, with stablecoins, trading infrastructure, and decentralized protocols emerging as the primary investment directions.
- Key Elements:
- This period saw a total of 8 disclosed funding rounds, amounting to $223 million, a significant 112% increase from the previous week's $105 million.
- Latin American stablecoin financial application ARQ topped the list with a $70 million funding round, backed by investors including Sequoia Capital, boasting an annual transaction volume exceeding $10 billion.
- Decentralized protocol OmniPact completed a $50 million private funding round, aiming to provide on-chain guarantees for peer-to-peer transactions through smart contracts.
- Digital asset trading firm Crossover Markets completed a $31 million Series B round led by Tradeweb, aiming to bring traditional electronic trading standards into the crypto space.
- Payment infrastructure company Utexo secured $7.5 million in funding, led by Tether, focusing on enabling instant settlement of USDT via the Bitcoin network.
According to incomplete statistics by Odaily, from March 2 to March 8, 2025, a total of 8 financing events were disclosed in the global blockchain sector, slightly down from the 9 events in the previous week. However, the total financing amount reached $223 million, nearly doubling compared to the $105 million from the previous week.
The project with the largest single financing amount this period was ARQ, a Latin American financial application focused on stablecoin services, which completed a $70 million financing round. The second largest was the decentralized protocol OmniPact, which builds a trust layer for peer-to-peer trading of physical and digital assets, announcing the completion of a $50 million private financing round.
The following are the specific financing events (Note: 1. Sorted by the announced amount; 2. Excluding fund fundraising and M&A events; 3. * indicates "traditional" sector companies with partial business involving blockchain):
On March 4, ARQ, a Latin American financial application focused on stablecoin services, completed a $70 million financing round with participation from Sequoia Capital and Founders Fund. The company stated that the funds will be used for rebranding, hiring employees, and expanding into new business areas such as wealth management, high-yield local currency accounts, and credit.
ARQ, formerly known as DolarApp, offers multi-currency accounts, digital wallets, foreign exchange services, and debit card services, supporting cross-border fund storage and transfer. It currently has over 2 million users in Latin America, with an annualized transaction volume exceeding $10 billion.
On-Chain Escrow Decentralized Protocol OmniPact Completes $50 Million Private Financing
On March 8, OmniPact, a decentralized protocol building a trust layer for peer-to-peer trading of physical and digital assets, announced the completion of a $50 million private financing round. The investors were a consortium of an institutional investor and family offices requesting anonymity. The protocol uses smart contracts as on-chain escrow to solve the "trust problem" in peer-to-peer transactions. The new funds will support the development of its core contracts and multi-chain infrastructure, as well as related security audits, while also driving the launch of its testnet in Q1 2026.
Payment Tech Company Silverflow Completes $40 Million Series B Financing, Led by Picus Capital
On March 6, payment technology company Silverflow announced the completion of a $40 million Series B financing round, led by Picus Capital, with participation from Rabobank's investment arm Rabo Investments, Inkef, Crane, Coatue, and GPT, among others. Its platform provides cloud-native payment processing solutions, supporting functions like network tokenized payments and card payments.
On March 5, digital asset trading firm Crossover Markets announced the completion of a $31 million Series B financing round at a $200 million valuation, led by the cross-asset class electronic trading platform Tradeweb. Participants included DRW Venture Capital, Ripple, Virtu Financial, Wintermute Ventures, XTX Markets, and Illuminate Financial, among others. The new funds will be used to enhance the technical architecture of the cryptocurrency electronic communication network CROSSx, expand global operations, deepen integration with institutional partners, and promote the extension of Tradeweb's electronic trading standards to the cryptocurrency sector.
Perpetual Futures Exchange QFEX Completes $9.5 Million Seed Round, Led by Yuri Sagalov
On March 5, according to an official announcement, perpetual futures exchange QFEX completed a $9.5 million seed financing round, led by Yuri Sagalov of General Catalyst, with participation from Paul Graham, Y Combinator, and others. Other investors included institutions such as Nexus Ventures, Moonfire Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Liquid2 Ventures, 468 Capital, and Ritual Ventures, as well as angel investors.
On March 4, stablecoin infrastructure provider Cyclops announced the completion of an $8 million financing round, with participation from Castle Island Ventures, F-Prime, and Shift4 Payments. Specific valuation data has not been disclosed.
Utexo Completes $7.5 Million Financing, Led by Tether and Others
On March 6, blockchain payment infrastructure company Utexo announced the completion of a $7.5 million seed financing round, jointly led by Tether, Big Brain Holdings, and Portal Ventures, with follow-on investments from over ten institutions including Franklin Templeton, Maven11 Capital, and FlowTraders. Utexo integrates Bitcoin, the Lightning Network, and the RGB protocol to provide payment operators with a single API access point, enabling instant settlement of USDT on the native Bitcoin network. Transaction fees are fixed and predictable, settlement time is under 1 second, and the entire process is executed with encryption and privacy.
On March 4, decentralized cloud storage service solution provider Akave announced the completion of a $6.65 million seed financing round, with participation from CVP NLH Advisors, Protocol Labs, No Limit Holdings, Blockchain Builders Fund (BBF), Big Brain Holdings LLC, Avalanche Foundation, and Filecoin Foundation, among others. Akave Cloud is built on the Layer 1 blockchain Avalanche and aims to support enterprises running data-intensive AI and analytics workloads. The new funds will primarily be used to expand sales and marketing efforts.
