Crypto Industry Secures $150 Million in June Funding Despite Market Volatility

Venture capital funding in the crypto industry has demonstrated remarkable resilience despite recent market volatility. In June, several high-profile funding deals underscored the continued interest in blockchain infrastructure, with themes such as AI, decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN), tokenization, payments, and real-world assets (RWAs) attracting significant investment. This trend highlights the crypto industry's ability to navigate seasonal volatility and sustain dealmaking momentum.

One standout deal involved Rails, a cryptocurrency exchange that secured $20 million in venture funding across two rounds. The most recent round was completed in April, and the company aims to build a trading platform that combines the utility of centralized exchanges with the advantages of decentralized markets. Rails is backed by prominent investors including Kraken, Slow Ventures, and Quantstamp. Slow Ventures described Rails as a “hybrid perpetual exchange that gives professional traders the speed of a CEX without giving up custody.”

Beam, a stablecoin payment service provider, closed a $7 million funding round to expand its compliance efforts and network capabilities. This round was led by Castle Ventures, with additional participation from Bankless Ventures, Archetype, Arca, and Verda Ventures. Beam offers stablecoin payment rails for fintechs, banks, and consumer platforms, and is already live on Visa Direct, Mastercard Send, and the Federal Reserve’s FedNow system. With this latest raise, Beam’s total funding now stands at $14 million. The company plans to use the new capital to expand operations in Latin America, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and the European Union.

Xavier Meegan, a former executive at staking provider Chorus One, launched Frachtis, a $20 million pre-seed fund backed by Theta Capital and RockawayX. The fund will support startup founders building decentralized AI, infrastructure, and consumer applications. Frachtis has already backed eight projects at the pre-seed and seed stages, spanning DeFi and AI protocols. Meegan’s experience at Chorus One, where he led over 40 investments, is instrumental in identifying the next major use cases in blockchain.

Inference Labs, a Web3 developer, raised $6.3 million to build a cryptographic trust layer for AI agents. The funding round included backing from DACM, Delphi Ventures, Arche Capital, and Lvna Capital. Inference Labs is developing Proof of Inference, a cryptographic method that validates AI outputs using zero-knowledge proofs. With the new funding, Inference Labs has launched a testnet for its Proof of Inference, featuring integrations with EigenLayer and Bittensor. The mainnet launch is planned for the third quarter of this year.

Gradient Network, a company developing a decentralized AI runtime on Solana, secured $10 million in seed funding from Pantera, Multicoin Capital, and HSG. The funding will support the expansion of Gradient’s decentralized AI infrastructure, with one of its core protocols, Lattica, launching in June. Gradient is also building Parallax, a decentralized inference engine designed to scale large language models and other AI applications. The company’s choice to build on Solana was a key factor in attracting investment from Pantera and Multicoin Capital.

Crypto exchange OKX and the programmable blockchain for intellectual property, Story, launched a $10 million ecosystem fund to support startups developing innovations in IP, decentralized IP frameworks, and other applications treating IP as an asset class. Funding will be distributed through the IP token — Story’s native token that represents intellectual property rights onchain — to back use cases involving real-world IP assets, AI, and data licensing, and programmable IP applications. Story’s developer, PIP Labs, raised $80 million in a Series B round last August, bringing its total funding to $140 million.

Blockchain startup Yupp closed a $33 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm, a16z Crypto, to build an AI evaluation platform powered by blockchain technology. Yupp is developing a platform where users can compare outputs from leading AI models and earn cryptocurrency rewards for their evaluations. The platform integrates payment services from Coinbase, Stripe, and PayPal. The a16z team described Yupp as transforming “human judgment into a renewable economic resource.”

Blueprint Finance, a multichain DeFi infrastructure developer, raised an additional $9.5 million to expand its product suite. The funding round was led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Yzi Labs, VanEck, Bitpanda Ventures, BitGo, and Gate Ventures. The raise comes as the DeFi sector recovers from the 2022 bear market. While total value locked (TVL) across DeFi platforms has rebounded significantly from its lows, it still remains below the sector’s all-time high three years ago.

Units Network, a blockchain ecosystem built on the Waves protocol, secured a $10 million investment led by Nimbus Capital to scale its infrastructure and address key scalability and decentralization challenges in the Web3 space. The funding will be used to expand validator capacity, enhance crosschain liquidity rails, and advance Units Network’s AI roadmap. Nimbus Capital is an investment firm backed by In On Capital, which manages $1.2 billion in assets.

Despite challenging market conditions, significant investments into blockchain infrastructure highlight the importance of AI integration and tokenization for the crypto industry's future. The focus on AI and DeFi protocols underscores the sector's resilience and the growing confidence in these areas, despite current macroeconomic challenges faced by other firms. The cyclical surge in DeFi mirrors past interest waves, especially during the 2021 DeFi summer. However, the current shift focuses on infrastructure and integrating AI, suggesting a more sustainable growth trajectory. Kaden Stadelmann, CTO of Komodo Platform, emphasized blockchain as a pivotal backbone, asserting, "Blockchain infrastructure remains the lead story in the crypto space."

Investor interest in DeFi and AI projects marks a significant shift since 2021. The funding supports the evolution of advanced blockchain technologies, reshaping infrastructure and promoting regulatory dialogue at institutional levels. Industry experts view these investments as pivotal, with the DeFi sector continuing to capture strong institutional interest through increasing TVL. Historical data show resilience, as sector inflows approach $130 billion by year-end. Sarah Austin, Co-founder, Titled, shared insights on the current macro environment, stating, "Some firms are struggling to close new funds in a challenging macro environment."