RISC Zero, Manta Network and Shardeum: where institutions invested in July

Institutional investors are legal entities that are professionally engaged in investments, using borrowed and own funds in order to generate income. Simply put, these are major players in the capital markets, including the cryptocurrency one. Unlike individual investors, they have a greater influence on the market, as they carry out transactions with a large amount of funds.

Startup RISC Zero is working on creating a virtual machine based on zero-knowledge proof technology. In July, the project raised $40 million in a Series A funding round led by Blockchain Capital. Other participants included Bain Capital Crypto, Galaxy Digital and others.

The RISC Zero team plans to use the proceeds to launch the Bonsai computing platform, which will support the development and deployment of applications in cloud and decentralized environments.

The Web3Go project, which develops AI tools for creating digital assets, has raised $4 million in a seed round led by Binance Labs. The startup was a participant in the fifth stage (MVB V) of the Binance venture capital incubation program. Web3Go plans to direct funds for rebranding to Web3Go DIN (Data Intelligence Network) and further development.

Developers of the EVM-compatible zero-knowledge proof network Manta Network received $25 million from Polychain Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, Alliance, CoinFund and SevenX Ventures. As a result of the round, the company was valued at $500 million.

The project team positions Manta Network as the fastest first-level (L1) blockchain. The developers also launched a test network of the second level (L2) for ZK applications - Manta Pacific. The funds raised will be used to scale the protocol and expand the user base.

The musical project with the uncomplicated name Sound has raised $20 million in a funding round led by the crypto division of venture capital fund a16z. Among other investors, such celebrities as Snoop Dogg and Ashton Kutcher lit up.

Sound is working to create a new business model that will eliminate the need for musicians to give a large portion of their profits to streaming services. The platform allows artists to release tracks in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and set a minimum cost, and users to choose how much they are willing to pay for the purchase. In this case, the musicians will receive 100% of the sale and retain their copyrights.

Blockchain startup Shardeum, led by Nishal Shetty, founder of Indian exchange WazirX, has raised $5.4 million in a strategic funding round. The investors were Amber Group, Galxe, J17 Capital, TRGC, Jsquare, Bware Labs, Tané Labs, Hyperithm Group and Luganodes.

Shardeum is a first-level blockchain aimed at solving the problems of scalability and decentralization of smart contract platforms. The project will be released to the mainnet at the end of 2023.