Funding Roundup: A Solana-based DePIN project raises $18M

This week was rife with funding announcements. The biggest came from Andrena, an Internet Service Provider (ISP), which announced its plans to launch a DePIN for decentralized broadband. 

Decentralized Autonomous Wireless Network (DAWN) raised a total of $18 million in a round led by Dragonfly. CMT Digital, Castle Island Ventures and Wintermute Ventures also contributed.* 

“Andrena has been on the forefront of DePIN before the term existed. Since we first backed the firm they have built a significant install base and are perfectly positioned to layer on the DAWN network,” said Castle Island Ventures founding partner Nic Carter. “We are strong believers in the notion that households will both consume and provide network resources, and Andrena is an emerging market leader in this domain.”

Read more: DePin projects have gained momentum on Solana blockchain

The funds, according to a press release, will go toward completing the protocol and expanding “Andrena’s subscriber base and migration of its end-users transactions onchain with DAWN.”

Another double-digit raise came from zk-powered exchange Vessel, which raised $10 million in a seed round. Sequoia, Scroll and Folius Ventures all participated in the round.  

The project says it “combines the efficiency and user-friendliness of centralized exchanges (CEX) with the transparency and security of decentralized platforms (DEX).”

“Our mission is to transform cryptocurrency trading into a secure and seamless journey, improving transparency, accessibility and efficiency for all users. We are poised to revolutionize cryptocurrency trading with superior services in spot trading, perpetual trading and other innovative derivatives,” the team wrote in a post on X.

Other notable rounds:

• Zoth, a DeFi yield infrastructure company, said it raised $4 million in a strategic funding round. Taisu Ventures, Fat Cat Ventures and AstraX Capital are among investors. 
• Payman AI, which is building AI to human payments, announced a $3 million pre-seed round. Investors included Visa, CB Ventures and Untapped Capital.
• Blockscout, a block explorer for EVM-based chains, said it raised $3 million in a round led by 1kx. Other investors included Gnosis and Primitive Ventures.  
• Nexio, a parallelized Bitcoin rollup, announced a $2.2 million pre-seed round led by Lattice.

Disclosure: Jason Yanowitz, co-founder of Blockworks and host of Empire, also participated in the DAWN round.

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