Follow the Money: $761.5M in Investments in a Week, Lakestar’s New $300M Fund, and Bybit’s Expansion

Between July 18 and 25, 2026, Incrypted’s editorial team recorded 15 investment deals, seven of which totaled $761.5 million. These included Strategy’s corporate deal, traditional venture fundraising, M&A, and much more. We break it all down in our weekly digest.

Classic Venture Capital

During the period in question, six projects received funding from venture firms. In particular:

• $300 million — Lakestar. The venture firm announced the close of Lakestar Resilience I, a $300 million fund focused on startups in defense, security, and critical infrastructure. The raised capital will be used to invest in tech companies, including those developing robotics, aerospace systems, and software for the defense sector.

• $180 million — Augustus. The company raised Series B funding at a $1 billion valuation, led by Tiger Global. The funds will be used to expand its infrastructure for digital dollar accounts and payment services for banks and fintech companies across Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, as well as to develop its in-house banking platform, Marble.

• $8 million — Cordant. The startup secured seed funding led by Motive Partners and Oak HC/FT. The team is building a platform for managing payment infrastructure that consolidates data from banking systems, payment networks, compliance, and risk management, simplifying operational oversight and the rollout of AI in the financial sector.

• $5 million — eCash (Bitcoin Drivechains). The project developing Drivechains technology (BIP300/301) for the Bitcoin ecosystem disclosed details of the investment raised in its second funding round, following an initial $3 million in 2022. The funds will help prepare the mainnet launch with seven sidechains for payments, privacy, prediction markets, and other use cases, as well as finalize the product’s go-to-market rollout.

• $4 million — SwarmBase. The company reported that its total funding has increased to $7 million after raising additional capital from Castrum Istanbul. The funds will be used to develop agentic AI infrastructure that enables autonomous AI agents to collaboratively carry out research, software development, and enterprise business processes.

• $1 million — ILITY. The Layer 1 blockchain focused on the economy of autonomous AI agents raised strategic funding at an $80 million valuation, with participation from Archer Capital and TBV. The investment will be directed toward developing protocol infrastructure, launching an AI-agent ecosystem, and building tools for agent interaction and onchain settlement.

Several more projects raised funding but did not disclose the amount.

K25.ai, a startup developing an AI-powered prediction markets platform, raised Series A funding with strategic support from Amber Group. The investment will help the company scale infrastructure that creates real-time prediction markets for sports, esports, entertainment content, and the creator economy. Following the round, K25.ai’s valuation increased to $200 million.

Notabene received a strategic investment from Ripple to develop infrastructure for regulated stablecoin payments. The partners will integrate RLUSD into the Notabene Flow platform and work on scaling enterprise transactions in compliance with regulatory requirements. The Notabene network already connects more than 2,300 financial institutions and processes more than $2 trillion in annualized transaction volume.

Tenor closed a seed funding round led by Variant, with participation from Nascent, Coinbase Ventures, and other investors. The team is building a non-custodial, fixed-rate onchain lending platform for institutional borrowers and asset managers. The funds will be used to develop infrastructure aimed at bringing the traditional lending market — worth around $200 trillion — onchain. 

Token Sales

The Rip Cars sale on metaDAO has ended, with the team raising $250,000. At the same time, nearly $30 million was deposited to participate via oversubscription. Two campaigns on Sonar — from Gno.land and Townsquare — are also nearing completion. As of writing, the former has raised only 50% of its planned $2.5 million, while the latter has hit its uncapped $1 million limit, but the sale continues in an oversubscription format.

In addition, you can find information on current and upcoming token sales via the dedicated section on the website, where all users can access details on active and upcoming asset sale campaigns. Our team also runs a dedicated Telegram channel and tracks the most relevant updates:

Corporate Placements and Deals

Institutional players continue to raise capital to build crypto reserves and expand operations. One deal was recorded last week:

• $263.5 million — Strategy. The largest corporate holder of bitcoin raised funds through an at-the-market share sale program, selling more than 2.7 million MSTR shares. The proceeds increased the company’s cash reserves to $3.225 billion.

Acquisitions and Mergers

Between July 18 and July 25, five M&A deals were recorded in the market.

Unserious, a company developing IP brands and Web3 products, acquired the Creepz NFT project with backing from investor Adam Weitsman. The deal is expected to accelerate the brand’s growth by integrating Unserious’ expertise in crypto, consumer products, and entertainment, while the Creepz founders will continue to support the project during the transition.

The Tie acquired Liquidity Land. The institutional analytics provider for digital asset markets is integrating a platform that helps DeFi protocols and blockchain networks attract liquidity through incentive campaigns. The deal will expand The Tie’s product ecosystem and strengthen its position in analytics and infrastructure for onchain markets.

The Tie also announced the acquisition of Staking Rewards. The company gained control of the Staking Rewards platform and data business, one of the largest providers of staking and yield information for digital assets. The acquisition will allow The Tie to expand its suite of institutional products and reinforce its position in the digital asset analytics market.

Premia acquired Raven Market. As part of the deal, Premia obtained all of Raven’s technology, intellectual property, models, and infrastructure, which will be integrated into the company’s institutional platform on the Canton Network. After the transaction closes, Raven will cease to exist as a standalone product, and its solutions will be used to develop Premia’s services.

Crypto exchange Bybit acquired a controlling stake in PT Enkripsi Teknologi Handal (NOBI). After the deal closed, the company was renamed Bybit Indonesia, and it will operate under the supervision of Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority. The acquisition strengthened the exchange’s presence in the Indonesian market and expanded its operations through a locally licensed platform.

Accelerators, Grants, and DAO Funding

This week, ecosystems and DAOs did not allocate funds to support projects.

Top Investors

The most active investors of the week were Variant, Nascent, Amber Group, Balaji Srinivasan, and Coinbase Ventures, according to CryptoRank data.

What’s on Investors’ Radar?

Between July 18 and July 25, projects raised funding across segments such as DeFi, blockchain services, CeFi, blockchain infrastructure, DAT, and others. Investors’ primary focus was on DeFi.

As a reminder, last week Web3 projects raised $3.49 billion in investment.

Follow coverage on Incrypted to stay up to date on new investments in the development of the digital world.