Tag: Venture Capital

AU21 Backs XFai’s Reimagined Future of DeFi

AU21, one of the most reputable venture capital firms in the world focusing on blockchain and digital assets, has decided to partner with XFai through a strategic investment. The partnership comes at an important time, as XFai’s proposed changes in the DeFi space are quickly gaining momentum as the project’s public token sale — referred to as Liquidity Generation Event (LGE) — is quickly approaching. AU21 is proud to be bound to XFai by providing its support and access to its network for XFai to reach a wider audience within the DeFi space and help revolutionize the industry.

XFai is a project set to chart a new course for how investors and projects interact within the DeFi ecosystem. It develops various tools that chart the liquidity depth and the order book of both DEX (decentralized exchanges) and CEX (centralized exchanges). Using its native-built DLO (DEX Liquidity Oracle), XFai shifts the liquidity between DEX and CEX dynamically to allow investors on DEX to benefit from free-flowing token liquidity, ultimately freeing the investors to enjoy optimized trading grounds on decentralized exchanges. XFai’s DLO is equipped with anti-slippage technology and an efficient one-sided provisioning, allowing both investors and liquidity farmers to minimize costs while enjoying transparency that shows the actual impact of their trading actions. Moreover, DLO allows partnered small and mid-cap tokens to benefit from APY earnings, allowing holders and projects to gain a bolstered income by choosing to stake their tokens in the liquidity pool.

AU21, the newest investor to be announced as part of XFai’s increasing list of stellar venture capital partners, has an impressive track record of leading projects to astounding success. Founded in 2017, AU21 quickly rose to become one of the most renowned names in the blockchain space. The venture capital firm has been involved in the success of various projects such as the Graph, Synthetix, Centrifuge, Polkadot and Elrond.

“We are proud to announce our backing of XFai and their autonomous liquidity management solution for cryptocurrencies. The DEX Liquidity Oracle achieves several technological milestones in decentralized liquidity provision, and will serve to create a more efficient and accessible marketplace for digital assets,” comments AU21.

About AU21

XFai is set to open the doors to public investors on April 8 through its Liquidity Generation Event (LGE). Unlike traditional Token Generation Event (TGE), the LGE is designed to allow participants to purchase the XFIT tokens and stake them in the liquidity pool in one step and one interface, compared to the normal procedure which would involve up to 4 steps and the hassle of navigating multiple interfaces. The unique launch mechanism, developed by XFai, is expected to set a new standard on how tokens are offered to the public. The LGE also dramatically lowers the likelihood of failed transactions, protecting the participating investors from paying high gas fees for those transactions. Moreover, the one-step mechanism is designed to save the participants from paying exuberantly high gas fees, which has been severely affecting the recent DeFi space. XFai’s XFIT LGE is set to launch on April 8, 2021.

We thank the support of AU21, and look forward to changing the current DeFi landscape for the better through the guidance of AU21.

About XFai

XFai develops tooling for the DeFi space, graphing it to build game-changing products. The XFai DLO is set to invite mid and small-cap tokens to start earning APY on their token holdings, while the XFai LGE is set to become industry-first in providing a more efficient, transparent, and fair way for everyone to get involved at an early stage. The LGE for XFai’s native token, XFIT, is set to launch on 8th April 2021. We invite everyone to join the DeFi revolution, spearheaded by XFai.

Source: Plato Data Intelligence: https://platoblockchain.net/ (bit.ly/3cuY52V)

Lightspeed Venture Raising $560 Million For Two Chinese Funds

Lighstpeed Venture Partners, an American venture capital firm focusing on early stage investments in the enterprise technology and consumer space, is raising a total of $560 million for VC funds focused on China.

In its pair of filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Lightspeed Venture said it is raising $360 million for a fourth Chinese venture capital fund and $200 million for a Chinese select fund.

The two funds – Lightspeed China Partners IV and Lightspeed China Partners Select I GP – add to Lightspeed’s 15 funds that have raised a combined $7.6 billion, according to Crunchbase data.

For this year, the firm raised $3.8 billion for its four funds – Lightspeed Venture Partners Select III, Lightspeed India Partners II, Lightspeed Venture Partners XII, and Lightspeed Venture Partners Select III.

Founded in 2000, Lightspeed Venture Partners invests in various sectors: enterprise, consumer, big data, bitcoin, enterprise technology, cleantech, mobile, internet, financial technology, cloud solutions, e-commerce, storage, media, networking, energy, and software, software-as-a-service, information technology, biotechnology, and social.

It mainly invests in countries such as the United States, Europe, Israel, China, and India.

Since its inception, the firm has made 678 investments, with 203 of them as lead investor. Its most recent investment was on December 14, 2018, when it invested $60 million Faire, a startup that helps retailers fund and buy wholesale merchandise for their stores.

Lightspeed-backed companies have held 17 initial public offerings in the last five years, about half of which have occurred since the start of 2017, including messaging app Snap, personal stylist company Stitch Fix Inc, and data storage provider Nutanix Inc.

It also reaped windfalls when Cisco Systems Inc acquired AppDynamics Inc and when Salesforce.com Inc bought MuleSoft for multiple billions of dollars.

According to a Reuters report, Lightspeed is eyeing a business expansion to Southeast Asia and wants to add investments in cryptocurrency, biotechnology, new TV streaming services and even cosmetics companies. – AsiaPEVC.com 

Also Read:
Singapore Data Center Startup AirTrunk Secures $621M Funding
On-demand Logistics Platform GoGoVan Raises $250m

On-demand Logistics Platform GoGoVan Raises $250m

Hong Kong-headquartered on-demand logistics platform GoGoVan has announced that it has raised $250 million in its latest funding round, led by US-based venture capital firm InnoVision Capital.

In a statement on its website, GoGoVan said the funding round was also participated by Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao, Russia-China Investment Fund, Hongrun Capital, Qianhai Fund of Funds, and 58 Daojia Group.

“We’re proud to announce that GoGoVan has raised $250 million in the first phase of its new round of funding. We will use the new funds to expand our service offering and grow new markets. Also, in the next few months, we will offer a new service type, door-to-door service, to fulfill the demand of small-item segment,” the logistics startup said on its Facebook page.

Established in 2013, GoGoVan is the first app-based platform for transporting goods in Asia. The app GoGoVan was created to connect drivers and customers, and we aim to redefine the everyday logistics experience by providing a convenient and efficient service.

Since its successful July 2013 launch in Hong Kong, GoGoVan has expanded to Singapore, South Korea, China, and Taiwan. The GoGoVan network currently comprises of over 20,000 commercial vehicles and 70,000 registered drivers.

In 2017, GoGoVan and Chinese peer 58 Suyun merged to create a $1-billion logistics heavyweight, thus creating Hong Kong’s first unicorn. Following the merger, the combined entity is known as 58 Suyun in China and GoGoVan outside the country.

Also Read: South Korea’s ProtoPie Raises $3.5m in KIP-led Series A

58 Suyun is the freight business unit of 58 Home, which claims to be China’s largest online marketplace serving local merchants and consumers and holds the majority stake in the combined entity.

The merger was said to create Asia’s only online platform to provide end-to-end on-demand logistics and freight services to both corporate and individual customers.

South Korea’s ProtoPie Raises $3.5m in KIP-led Series A

ProtoPie, an interactive prototyping tool for digital product designers, has raised $3.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Korea Investment Partners (KIP), according to Studio XID, the developer of the design tool.

The Series A financing round was led by KIP with the participation of Kolon Investment and POSCO Venture Capital. Korea Investment Partners are known for backing internet startups Naver known to be the largest unicorn in the Korean peninsula and DoubleU Casino a famous social casino gaming publisher.

Since launching ProtoPie commercially last year and raising a Pre-Series A with venture capital firm Evergreen Investment Partners and the investment arms of international giants Samsung and LINE, the prototyping tool has been experiencing significant growth.

Designers in more than 70 countries at renowned companies like Google, Microsoft, Nintendo, IDEO and Alibaba have integrated ProtoPie in their daily workflow.

“We’re empowering designers to create highly interactive prototypes that are hard to distinguish from the actual digital products they design for. This way, designers can validate ideas easily and quickly while bridging the gap with stakeholders. Nowadays, it’s not just apps and websites on a single screen on your phone or computer. Of course, they still dominate the broad spectrum of digital products,” said co-founder and CEO Tony Kim, who has been with Google prior to becoming an entrepreneur.

ProtoPie allows designers to utilize sensors in smart devices, e.g. tilt, proximity and sound sensors when it comes to highly interactive prototyping. Also, designers can easily create prototypes that can communicate with each other by creating interactions across devices.

Also Read: Singapore’s Radiflow Bags $18M from ST Engineering

An example would be realistically mimicking the way drivers and passengers interact in an Uber-like service. Furthermore, prototypes made in ProtoPie can integrate with external hardware like Arduino or littleBits, allowing the possibilities to be endless. These features allow ProtoPie to be at the forefront of prototyping in the software industry.

Singapore’s Radiflow Bags $18M from ST Engineering

Radiflow, a provider of industrial cybersecurity solutions for critical infrastructure, announced that it has raised an $18-million investment round led by ST Engineering Ventures, the Corporate Venture Capital unit of ST Engineering.

Radiflow’s existing investors, led by Zohar Zisapel, also participated in this investment round.

Radiflow provides cybersecurity solutions for industrial control systems (ICS) and Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) networks.

The company has been one of the pioneers in this market and has been growing rapidly with more than 50 customers worldwide, including Tier 1 critical infrastructure operators in the United States and Europe, and endorsements from leading US national labs and consultants.

Radiflow’s wide product portfolio, which consists of risk assessment, threat detection and secure remote access tools with unique in-depth industrial asset visibility, anomaly detection and distributed architecture, offers extensive use cases and applications for protecting ICS and SCADA networks.

The cybersecurity risks to the conservative industrial market have been recently highlighted with both focused attacks, such as the Triton case, and IT-based attacks, including the cryptocurrency mining malware attack that Radiflow’s iSID system detected at a waste-water facility.

Radiflow is addressing these challenges with its advanced industrial cybersecurity solutions and its rapidly expanding technology partner ecosystem, which includes recently announced collaboration with Palo Alto Networks and RSA, to ease field deployments and ensure compliance with the new regulations, including NERC CIP and the EU NIS Directive.

Radiflow reports that the company is experiencing strong demand for its industrial cybersecurity solutions across all critical infrastructure sectors and has more than doubled the sales of its threat detection tools and services over the past year.

Radiflow will use the investment proceeds to extend its sales network to support the growing market demand, strengthen its brand globally and continue developing its innovative solutions to meet the evolving customer needs.

The investment and partnership enables ST Engineering to access Radiflow’s detection and prevention tools, which has been integrated with its Rail Command, Control and Communications (C3) Systems (SCADA) – in this instant the rail supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system.

The combining of these two technologies has resulted in the development of the region’s first end-to-end cybersecurity solution for the rail transport industry.

“This investment in Radiflow demonstrates ST Engineering’s focus in identifying startups with global best-in-class technologies for collaboration opportunities. The access to our established business networks and channels will help these companies to expand and accelerate the scope of their growth, developing solutions that will benefit our global customers,” said Low Ka Hoe, Chief Strategy Officer at ST Engineering.

“The collaboration between ST Engineering and Radiflow will enable us to introduce our solutions to new customers and territories, while this new investment will facilitate us to expand our market traction and accelerate the next stage of our growth,” commented Ilan Barda, CEO of Radiflow.