Share this article

Polychain Capital Co-Leads $25M Fundraise for Manta Network Developer

The cryptographic development project, p0x, received a valuation of $500 million.

Jul 19, 2023, 1:36 p.m.
Lending money handing over paying cash (Shutterstock)
Lending money handing over paying cash (Shutterstock)

Manta Network developer p0x labs has raised $25 million in a Series A round led by Polychain Capital and Qiming Venture Partners, as infrastructure projects continue to prove resilient during the bear market.

Manta Network is a modular ecosystem for zero-knowledge (ZK) applications, which utilize a cryptographic method of mathematically verifying that a transaction is valid without compromising its privacy.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters

The company previously launched the ZK-focused layer 1 blockchain Manta Atlantic to offer programmable privacy. The newly rolled out Manta Pacific, now in testnet, aims to serve as a layer 2 ecosystem to make it easier for developers to deploy Ethereum Virtual Machine-native ZK applications.

The new capital, valuing the project at $500 million, will help scale the network, user base and use cases for Manta Pacific and fuel the expansion in key Asia markets, according to a statement. Additional investors in the round included Alliance, CoinFund, and SevenX Ventures.

“We are excited to see Manta expanding into the Ethereum ecosystem, and have doubled down on our investment this Series A round,” said Luke Pearson, Investor at Polychain Capital. “Manta Pacific will leverage the performance capabilities of the modular ecosystem, whilst also allowing increasing access to ZK through Universal Circuits,” he added.

The raise comes as Web3 infrastructure has been an investor darling from the beginning of this year following last year's FTX implosion. Most recently, a survey by Binance showed that majority of its institutional investors found infrastructure to be the most important investment, closely followed by layer 1 and layer 2 projects.

Read more: Binance’s Institutional Clients Remain Optimistic on Crypto Amid Tough Market

More For You

Pudgy Penguins: A New Blueprint for Tokenized Culture

Pudgy Title Image

Pudgy Penguins is building a multi-vertical consumer IP platform — combining phygital products, games, NFTs and PENGU to monetize culture at scale.

What to know:

Pudgy Penguins is emerging as one of the strongest NFT-native brands of this cycle, shifting from speculative “digital luxury goods” into a multi-vertical consumer IP platform. Its strategy is to acquire users through mainstream channels first; toys, retail partnerships and viral media, then onboard them into Web3 through games, NFTs and the PENGU token.

The ecosystem now spans phygital products (> $13M retail sales and >1M units sold), games and experiences (Pudgy Party surpassed 500k downloads in two weeks), and a widely distributed token (airdropped to 6M+ wallets). While the market is currently pricing Pudgy at a premium relative to traditional IP peers, sustained success depends on execution across retail expansion, gaming adoption and deeper token utility.

More For You

Circle faces first major 'threat' for institutional dollars from Tether’s USAT

Circle logo on a building

While Circle's USDC has operated without a "credible domestic competitor," Tether's USAT has the potential to shake up the landscape, analysts said.

What to know:

  • Analysts said USAT, the U.S.-focused stablecoin by Tether, could become the first credible domestic competitor to Circle's USDC token.
  • USAT is "a threat to USDC" and could gain an edge through institutional partners and global USDT connectivity, Crypto is Macro Now's Noelle Acheson said.
  • ClearStreet's Owen Lau called USAT “a manageable risk” for Circle, and noted potential "cannibalization" risk between Tether's two tokens.