Crypto VC Funding: Ripple Acquires Hidden Road For $1.25b, Wunder Social Raises $50m

The second week of April saw a significant acquisition: Ripple, which offers enterprise blockchain products on the XRP Ledger, purchased Hidden Road for $1.25 billion.

According to data from Crypto Fundraising, the deal helped push the week’s total funding to exceed $1.5 billion.

Let’s take a closer look at last week’s funding activity.

Hidden Road, $1.25 billion

• Ripple (XRP) is acquiring prime brokerage firm Hidden Road for $1.25 billion.
• The deal will be primarily cash-based, along with a portion paid in XRP and Ripple stock. Marc Asch, the founder of Hidden Road, will continue to lead the brokerage under Ripple.
• “Ripple needs to make sure we have the infrastructure in place to appeal and expand to a larger segment of the biggest bulge bracket institutions,” CEO Brad Garlinghouse told Fortune.

Wunder Social, $50 million

• The British social media startup amassed $50 million in a round led by Rollman Management and other big-name investors; It’s one of the largest hauls for a U.K. social platform this year.
• Set to launch in 2025, Wunder.Social aims to shake up the $200 billion social media world with “cutting-edge tech and a user-first ethos.”
• Former TikTok marketing boss Ryan Martin is now serving as Wunder’s Chief Marketing Officer.

Blackbird, $50 million

• Blackbird, a loyalty and membership platform built for restaurants, secured $50 million in Series B funding.
• Spark Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and a16z crypto participated in the effort.
• Blackbird has raised $85 million so far; it previously raised $24 million in a Series A.

Meanwhile, $40 million

• Meanwhile, a Bitcoin-denominated life insurance firm regulated by the Bermuda Monetary Authority, nabbed $40 million in Series A funding.
• Framework, Farcus Ventures, and Wences Casares, co-founder of Bitcoin-enabled Xapo Bank, joined the investment.
• Meanwhile offers policies denominated in Bitcoin (BTC). It previously raised $20.5 million in its seed round, which attracted backing from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley.

Solix DePIN, $29.5 million

• Secured $29.5 million in an unknown round backed by Eclip Foundation
• The investment is expected to help enhance core technology, expand global reach, and introduce advanced features such as smart bandwidth allocation and AI-powered network optimization.
• Solix DePIN also plans to partner with cloud service providers and content delivery networks to create broader use cases for its decentralized bandwidth marketplace.

APX Lending, $20 million

• APX Lending clinched $20 million in an unknown round.
• The round was backed by CypressHills, a private credit investment firm.

BugsCoin, $12 million

• BugsCoin secured $12 million in Series A funding
• Backed by Becker, Eastrum Capital, and BullPerks
• The project has raised a total of $20.5 million

Towns Protocol, $10 million

• Towns Protocol raised $10 million in Series B funding
• The investment was backed by a16z crypto, Coinbase Ventures, and Benchmark
• It has raised a total of $61 million

Notable crypto VC funding rounds < $10 million

• Cap Labs, $8 million for DeFi yield aggregation
• Octane Security, $6.75 million for AI security
• OpenZK, $6 million in an unknown round
• DecentralGPT, $3 million in a Series A round
• Firefish, $1.80 million in a Seed round
• Sats Terminal, $1.7 million for Bitcoin yield aggregation
• Lyzi, $1.42 million for Tezos (XTZ) payments
• Libraro, $1.28 million in Seed funding