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. You might also like: NFT sales drop 4.7% to $94.7m, Courtyard dethrones CryptoPunks 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. 🔥 BIG NEWS! 🔥 We’ve just raised $50M to REINVENT social media! 🌎✈️ Powered by @base , bot-free, and rewarding YOU with ad revenue. Say goodbye to fake followers and hello to REAL connections. 🎉 And yes, @CoinDesk already covered us! Get ready for $WUNDER token offer… pic.twitter.com/4Nz5j2LjHA — Wunder (@wunder_social) April 9, 2025 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. We're proud to announce our $40M Series A led by @hiFramework & @FulgurVentures , w/ participation from Bitcoin pioneer Wences Casares. This capital accelerates our global rollout of BTC-denominated life insurance & annuities, protecting users from inflation & currency risk 🧵⤵️ pic.twitter.com/kTMxDaDBeh — meanwhile (@meanwhilelife) April 10, 2025 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. APX Lending $20M Funding Round⚡️ 📑 About: @APXLending is a compliant crypto-backed lending platform. 🤝 Investor: Cypress Hills 👉 https://t.co/YTGOZUy2gG pic.twitter.com/QLZVVDbniI — Fundraising Digest (@CryptoRank_VCs) April 11, 2025 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 🚨 BugsCoin Raises $12M Series A to Lead Innovation in Web3 Financial Education 🏦 VC Investors: • Becker Ventures • Castrum Capital • BullPerks • DuckDAO • Maxx Capital On April 11, BugsCoin ($BGSC), a Web3-based financial education platform, announced the successful… pic.twitter.com/lD7GYnJeGu — bugscoin (@bugscoin_bgsc) April 11, 2025 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 Excited to share our latest funding round, led by @a16zcrypto , with the addition of new investor @cbventures and continued support from @benchmark . The future of communication is onchain. pic.twitter.com/qGQUa9cvaE — Towns Protocol (@TownsProtocol) April 10, 2025 Notable crypto VC funding rounds 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 Read more: NFT sales drop 4.7% to $94.7m, Courtyard dethrones CryptoPunks
