This edition of Cointelegraph’s VC Roundup highlights Mira, Astria, Compute Labs, BOB, Dora, and BITKRAFT Ventures.

Despite recent moderation in several inflation measures, such as the Consumer Price Index and Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, suggesting a gradual return to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, venture firms in the Web3 space remain largely unaffected in their investment strategies. “When investing in early-stage companies with a long investment horizon, macroeconomic conditions shouldn’t overly dictate your investment pace,” Carlos Pereira, partner at BITKRAFT Ventures, told Cointelegraph.

Pereira explained that current economic conditions impact seed rounds less than Series A rounds. “In tougher markets, it can be advantageous to be a later-stage, Series A investor as it becomes ‘cheaper’ to act on incremental validation points, whereas in hotter markets, those businesses may be closer to launching a token and thus more expensive,” he noted.

BITKRAFT Ventures’ crypto strategy focuses narrowly and deeply on the intersection of Web3 and interactive entertainment. Their recent investments include “cozy games” and developing open-source AI models powered by blockchain technology.

This edition of Cointelegraph’s VC Roundup features startups that raised capital in July.

Mira Closes $9M Seed Round Led by BITKRAFT Ventures, Framework Ventures

Mira, a decentralized infrastructure platform for artificial intelligence, has closed a $9 million seed round led by BITKRAFT Ventures and Framework Ventures, with contributions from Accel, Crucible, Folius Ventures, Mechanism Capital, SALT Fund, and notable angel investors. Mira provides user-friendly SDKs to simplify AI infrastructure complexity. The funds will be used to expand globally and develop the Mira network and ecosystem applications, including Klok, an AI copilot for crypto. Mira’s API marketplace enables developers to access open-source AI resources and create Mira Flows for usage-based fees.

Astria Raises $12.5M in Strategic Fundraise Led by dba, Placeholder VC

Astria, a sequencing layer startup, has raised $12.5 million in a strategic funding round led by dba and Placeholder VC, with participation from RockawayX and returning investors. The funds will advance the Astria Sequencing Layer and Astria Stack, allowing permissionless rollup deployment without centralized sequencers. Contributors to the round included Maven11, 1kx, Figment Capital, Batu, and angel investors.

Astria’s Sequencing Layer provides a decentralized network for transaction ordering across multiple rollups, while the Astria Stack offers tools for deploying Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) rollups. The Celestia-based rollup Forma has already launched on the Astria Stack. Since May, over 42,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been minted or purchased on Forma.

Compute Labs Raises $3M Pre-Seed for Tokenized GPUs on Solana

Compute Labs, a startup focused on tokenized real-world assets, has raised $3 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed funding round led by Protocol Labs, with participation from Blockchain Coinvestors, MH Ventures, OKX Ventures, Symbolic Capital, and notable crypto leaders like Sandeep Nailwal of Polygon and Illia Polosukhin of Near Protocol. Incubated by NVIDIA Inception VC Alliance, Compute Labs aims to tokenize enterprise-grade GPUs onchain and offer open access to compute revenue via a GPU Restaking solution. The funds will be used to build the core project team and complete the development of their first GPU non-fungible token (GNFT) vaults by mid-July.

BOB Raises $1.6M for Startup Incubation

Hybrid layer-2 solution BOB, or “Build on Bitcoin,” has raised $1.6 million to support its incubator program. The round was led by Ledger Ventures and angel investors, including individuals from BlackRock, Rarible, Ordinals, Aave, Curve, Threshold, Magic Eden, Mechanism, Injective, Vessel Capital, Babylon, and Centrifuge. The funds will be allocated to a BOB incubator focused on innovative startups working on Bitcoin infrastructure and BOB DApp space. The initiative aims to bridge the gap between Bitcoin’s global adoption and Ethereum’s innovation powerhouse. In March, BOB closed a $10 million seed funding round led by Castle Island Ventures.

Dora Closes $5.5M Funding Co-Led by Dragonfly, Lemniscap

Multichain search engine Dora has closed a $5.5 million early-stage funding round, co-led by Dragonfly Capital and Lemniscap, with participation from Robot Ventures, Ethereal Ventures, Maven11, Arche Capital, and other angel investors. The funds will be used for Dora’s search and cross-chain transaction features and to expand collaborations with blockchain networks. Dora supports over 20 chains, including Ethereum and Arbitrum, offering a multichain Block Explorer, APIs for token and NFT data, organized data structures, transaction functionalities, and an embedded wallet.

Source: Cointelegraph