The The crypto venture capital landscape remains covered In the fourth quarter, there were fewer high-profile funding deals compared to earlier in the year.
Kaden Stadelmann, Chief Technology Officer at Komodo Platform, told Cointelegraph that the “crypto sector is facing pressure from many angles,” noting that AI is absorbing huge demand From Crypto, and the “VC Investment in AI Far Outpaces VC Investment in Crypto.”
Stadelmann also cited macroeconomic uncertainty as one reason venture capital firms are taking a more cautious approach.
At the same time, most of the remaining activity has shifted towards mainstream bitcoin (BTC) The business ecosystem, which often does not rely on traditional venture funding.
“Bitcoin-focused ventures can bootstrap through community and network support instead of VC,” said Gabe Salinas, CEO of Alamo Labs and founder of the San Antonio Bitcoin Club.
Despite the slowdown, capital is still flowing into projects that build the digital asset economy pipeline, especially in areas like StableCoins, payment infrastructure and decentralized trading platforms.
The latest edition of the VC Roundup explores funding rounds from Telcoin, Hercle, Momentum, Temple Digital Group and Ark Research.
Telcoin closes $25 million funding round to build digital asset bank
Telcoin, a fintech company that develops blockchain-based financial services, has raised $25 million in an ongoing pre-series A funding to advance the launch of the digital asset bank, which is expected later this year.
The fund forms part of Telcoin’s capitalization requirements under the condition of being approved by the Nebraska Digital Asset Depository Institution (N-DADI) Charter—a special state banking framework that allows institutions to keep digital assets and offer blockchain-based financial services under US banking supervision.
The increase also supports Telcoin’s plans to enter the StableCoin Market With the launch of EUSD, a new US Dollar -feat StableCoin designed for consumer use within the telcoin ecosystem. The EUSD token will primarily be used for payments and service remittances primarily as a trading instrument.
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F-Prime is backed by Hercle’s $60 million
Hercle, a digital asset and StableCoin Infrastructure Company, has raised a total of $60 million in funding to accelerate its global expansion and build institutional stablecoin infrastructure for faster cross-border payments.
The raise includes a $10 million equity investment led by F-Prime, with participation from Fulgur Ventures and Exponential Science, along with a $50 million credit line to support liquidity.
Hercle said its platform processes more than $20 billion in transactions for more than 200 institutional clients, including financial institutions, payment providers and exchanges. The company reported that 90% of transactions settled under five minutes, highlighting its focus on speed and scalability for large amounts of global payments.
Sui Dex Momentum raises $10 million
Momentum, the biggest decentralized exchange (Dex) on the Sui blockchain, has raised $10 million in a new funding round at a fully diluted valuation of $350 million. The round was led by Hashkey Capital, with participation from Anchorage Digital and other institutional investors.
Founded by former Libra and Amazon engineer Wendy Fu, Momentum has emerged as the leading defi protocol in SUI, based on total value locked (TVL), user base and aggregate trading volume. The platform reports 2.1 million users and more than $22 billion in cumulative trading volume.
Momentum said it plans to use the new capital to expand beyond the SUI ecosystem through crosschain integrations and to develop institutional-grade compliance features that will enable regulated onboarding for professional investors.
Related: Commonware gets $25m from Tempo as Stripe, Paradigm Deepen Blockchain Bet
Digital Digital Raises $5 Million to Build Institutional Trading Infrastructure
Temple Digital Group, an institutional infrastructure developer focused on the Canton Network, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by paper ventures, with participation from more than a dozen other investment firms.
Temple is building a privacy- and compliance-focused trading stack that combines traditional market features, such as order books and post-trade reporting, with blockchain-based capabilities, including tokenization, instant settlement and digital wallets.
The company said it will use the new funding to expand its product suite and implement additional integrations across the Canton Network.
Canton Network has attracted significant attention from major financial institutions. Its developer, digital asset, It recently raised $135 million from investors, including Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas, to accelerate the development of the network.
Arx Research has raised $6.1 million to boost merchant stablecoin adoption
Arx Research, a hardware and software provider focused on digital payments, has raised $6.1 million from investors including Castle Island Ventures, Placeholder, 1KX and Inflection. The funding will be used to scale up manufacturing and prepare for the commercial launch of its products early next year.
The company is developing burner capital, a handheld point-of-sale (POS) device that allows merchants to accept both StableCoin and traditional payments in a single terminal. The device Combines with Flexawhich allows merchants to accept many cryptocurrencies – including bitcoin, ether (Eth) and Solana (Sol) – Next to StableCoins.
Related: Tempo, Stripe’s new blockchain, hits $5B valuation with $500m funding round
