Wu said April VC Monthly Report: XRP 1.25 billion acquisition of institutional brokerage firm, SOL Microstrategy financing 500 million, Bit Little Deer raised 179 million, etc.

Author | Wu Talks Blockchain

According to RootData statistics, in April 2025, there were a total of 66 venture capital projects publicly disclosed by Crypto VC, a month-on-month decrease of 15.4% (78 projects in March 2025) and a year-on-year decrease of 62.9% (178 projects in April 2024). The number of financing reached a new low since February 2021. Note: Since not all financing is disclosed in the current month, the above statistics may increase in the future. The number of projects in each sector is as follows:

Among them, CeFi accounts for approximately 10.6%, DeFi accounts for approximately 19.7%, NFT/GameFi accounts for approximately 7.6%, L1/L2 accounts for approximately 13.6%, RWA/DePIN accounts for approximately 22.7%, Tool/Wallet accounts for approximately 4.5%, and AI accounts for approximately 13.6%.

The total financing amount in April 2025 was $2.986 billion, an increase of 3.1% month-on-month (from $2.895 billion in March 2025) and an increase of 170.2% year-on-year (from $1.105 billion in April 2024). The number of financing rounds reached a new high since May 2022. Among them, the top 10 rounds by amount are as follows:

Ripple has agreed to acquire the institutional brokerage firm Hidden Road for $1.25 billion, marking the largest acquisition to date for this crypto startup. Founded in 2018, Hidden Road provides clearing, institutional brokerage, and financing services across areas such as foreign exchange, digital assets, derivatives, swaps, and fixed income. It currently clears over $3 trillion in trades annually across various markets and has more than 300 institutional clients, including hedge funds.

Canadian Stock Exchange listed company SOL Strategies announced that it has obtained a convertible note financing of up to $500 million from ATW Partners. This funding will be exclusively used to purchase SOL and stake it on the validator nodes operated by the company. The first tranche of $20 million is scheduled to be completed on May 1, and the staking rewards will be shared by both parties.

Bitdeer raised $179 million through loans and equity financing to accelerate its Bitcoin ASIC manufacturing business. The company reached a loan agreement with Matrixport for up to $200 million and secured a $17 million unsecured loan in January. Additionally, Bitdeer raised $118.8 million through stock issuance. The funds will be used to expand ASIC manufacturing and in-house chip development to challenge companies like Bitmain and MicroBT. In 2024, Bitdeer generated approximately $147 million in gross profit from its mining and hosting business and invested heavily in the production of the SEALMINER series chips.

Bitcoin mining machine manufacturer Auradine announced the completion of a $153 million Series C financing, which includes $138 million in equity financing and $15 million in venture debt. This round was led by StepStone Group, with participation from Maverick Silicon, Premji Invest, and others. Auradine plans to expand its mining machine production and AI infrastructure business, with current clients including Marathon Digital.

The cryptocurrency asset trading and investment company GSR has made a $100 million private equity investment (PIPE) in Upexi, Inc., a brand owner focused on the development, manufacturing, and distribution of consumer goods. This investment comes after Upexi announced a strategic transformation towards a cryptocurrency asset-based financial strategy aimed at delivering long-term value and returns for shareholders. Upexi has committed to establishing a Solana financial strategy, which includes accumulating and staking Solana. Since Upexi successfully completed a $100 million directed issuance, the company has accumulated approximately 45,733 Solana, with an investment amount of about $6.7 million.

a16z General Partner Ali Yahya stated that an additional investment of $55 million has been made in LayerZero (ZRO), with a lock-up period of 3 years. Previously, a16z led the two rounds of financing for LayerZero from the A1 round in 2022 to the B round in 2023.

Decentralized AI startup Nous Research has completed a $50 million Series A funding round, led by crypto venture capital firm Paradigm, with a valuation of $1 billion. Nous utilizes the Solana Blockchain to coordinate global computing power, training open-source large models in a distributed manner, and plans to launch a decentralized training system to promote the democratization of AI model training.

The crypto dining app Blackbird has completed a $50 million Series B funding round, led by Spark Capital, with participation from Coinbase, a16z crypto, Union Square Ventures, and others. Blackbird founder Ben Leventhal stated that he raised this funding in the fourth quarter of 2024. Since 2022, Blackbird has raised a total of $85 million.

Recently, Meanwhile completed a $40 million Series A funding round led by Framework Ventures and Fulgur Ventures, with participation from Xapo’s founder Wences Casares. This funding round values Meanwhile at $190 million. Meanwhile is a Bitcoin life insurance provider, and its first product is a whole life insurance policy priced in Bitcoin (BTC).

The crypto asset equity protocol Symbiotic announced the completion of a $29 million Series A funding round, led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and over 100 angel investors from teams such as Aave, Polygon, and StarkWare. The completion of this funding round also marks the launch of Symbiotic’s universal staking framework, which aims to serve as an economic coordination layer to enhance blockchain security through staking.