Morningstar Ventures is a venture capital firm that specializes in investments in blockchain and Web3 infrastructure solutions. The firm actively participates in funding rounds for emerging technology companies, particularly those in the cryptocurrency and digital assets space. It provides support to startups through various stages of growth, from seed funding to later-stage investments, and focuses on fostering innovation in the decentralized technology ecosystem.

Morningstar Ventures

We are a proprietary investment firm specializing in digital assets and blockchain technology. Our primary focus is the Elrond ecosystem.

💫 NEW INVESTMENT

Metaverse Game Studios, Inc. Secures $10M in Funding Round

Cross-platform game development company Metaverse Game Studio has finalized $10M in a funding round co-led by Pantera Capital, Animoca Brands, Solana Ventures, Everyrealm and participation from OKX Blockdream Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Morningstar Ventures, Huobi Ventures, and more.

The company's flagship game, Angelic, is an engaging MMORPG - (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game) that includes NFTs and a DAO mechanism. It takes place in a dark sci-fi metaverse where "unique neo-humans" can explore and colonize planets, forge alliances, and participate in colony wars.

Animoca Brands co-founder and Executive Chairman Yat Siu recently states: "Angelic is building a massively multiplayer metaverse with a deep gameplay layer enriched by a sophisticated backstory. We believe this is the right approach to help bridge the divide between blockchain games and AAA titles."

➡️ Find out more here: https://bit.ly/3u0cn2W
➡️ Learn more about Angelica: https://lnkd.in/eJBZJRJS

#cryptonewsdaily #cryptocurrency #blockchain #blockchaingaming, #cryptonews #metaverse #playtoearn

💎 ELROND ECOSYSTEM UPDATES

Elrond Acquires Payments Firm Twispay

Layer 1 Elrond Network has recently finalized the acquisition of the payment firm Twispay. The news arrived together with the approval to issue electronic money by the National Bank of Romania, which signs another essential milestone for the team. In fact, Twispay’s e-money license will allow Elrond to issue stablecoins in the European Union (EU).

In this regard, Elrond CEO Beniamin Mincu said: “This landmark decision from the Romanian Central Bank opens the door for EU citizens, and soon for everyone everywhere, to significantly benefit from value flowing with near-instant settlement times, at 100x fewer costs, with full transparency, and higher reliability.”

➡️ Find out more here https://bit.ly/3J539J8
➡️ Learn more about Elrond: https://elrond.com/

#cryptonewsdaily #cryptocurrency #blockchain #blockchaingaming #playtoearn #cryptonews, #elrond

💎 ELROND ECOSYSTEM UPDATES

Itheum becomes The Next Project of The Maiar Launchpad 

We are glad to announce that Itheum - first company supported by our Elrond Dubai Incubator - has officially entered the Elrond Network ecosystem, becoming the second-ever project accepted on the Elrond Maiar Launchpad.
Congratulations to the Itheum team for this important success 💫


Launchpad Timeline

9 March:
- Registration & KYC begins

25 March:
- KYC ends 
- EGLD Staking snapshot

26 March:
- Buy lottery tickets

28 March:
- Announce Winning tickets
- Winners claim ITHEUM tokens
- All participants claim unspent EGLD


➡️ Find out more here https://bit.ly/35FFCAj
➡️ Learn more about Itheum: https://www.itheum.io/

#cryptonewsdaily #cryptocurrency #blockchain #blockchaingaming, #cryptonews

💫  NEW INVESTMENT

Luxury NFT Marketplace UNXD Announces $4M in Funding

UNXD, an exclusive NFT marketplace for digital luxury and culture, has successfully raised $4M in its latest funding session backed by the crypto-native investors Animoca Brands, Polygon Studios, Reddao, Arcanum Capital, Bitscale Capital, Morningstar Ventures, Future Perfect Ventures, and many others.

The UNXD has already initiated an essential partnership with the luxury brand DOLCE&GABBANA, resulting in a dedicated NFT collection called "Collezione Genesi" - revealed in August 2021 and fetched just under $6M at the final sale - and the upcoming launch of the NFT community "DGFamily."

UNXD is one of the first projects fully dedicated to Web3 fashion. The funds raised will help UNXD grow its team and ecosystem, including launching the "Astronomia Metaverso," a bespoke collection featuring high-end physical and digital watches.

➡️ Read the announcement: https://bit.ly/3tIloxK
➡️ Learn more about UNDX: https://unxd.com/

#cryptonewsdaily #cryptocurrency #blockchain #blockchaingaming #playtoearn #cryptonews

💫 NEW INVESTMENT

Ignite Tournaments Completes $7M Strategic Round

Play-to-Earn infrastructure provider Ignite Tournaments has recently completed a successful $7M strategic round. The session, co-led by well-known Animoca Brands, Infinity Ventures Crypto (IVC), and Moon Holdings Fund, has attracted many investors, including Genesis Block Ventures, SevenX Ventures, LongHash Ventures, Huobi Ventures, and others. In December 2021, the company also closed a $3M seed round led by Yield Guild Games and Ascensive Assets with participation from D1 Ventures, Morningstar Ventures, and others.

The Ignite Team has raised a total of $10M in funds, attacking investors from traditional and blockchain gaming. It confirms the strong interest in the project, which has been able to fill the gap between conventional gaming and web 3.0 by providing a platform able to turn any pre-existing mobile game into a play-to-earn game.


➡️ Read the announcement: https://bit.ly/3hAAWxN
➡️ Ignite Tournaments: https://lnkd.in/dYvbfViN

#cryptonewsdaily #cryptocurrency #blockchain #blockchaingaming #playtoearn #cryptonews, #play2earn

📢 PORTFOLIO UPDATE

holoride Partners with HTC VIVE to Launch Ride-Ready Glasses at Mobile World Congress 2022

The Audi-backed German startup Holoride has recently started a new partnership with the VR (virtual reality) platform HTC VIVE. Holoride combines extended reality (XR) with navigational and car data - such as travel routes, traffic, and more- to revolutionize the in-car experience by turning vehicles into moving theme parks. 

The collaboration with HTC VIVE will allow the startup to integrate with VIVE Flow, an immersive VR glasses. VIVE Flow is the first holoride-ready device for vehicle integration: it will be available for demo at Mobile World Congress (Feb 28 - Mar 3 - Barcelona) while planning the market launch in the second half of 2022. Shen Ye, Global Head of Hardware at HTC VIVE, recently commented: “Paired with holoride’s impressive tech, you’ll be able to turn car rides into virtual amusement parks. We’re very excited to work with holoride in shaping the future of passenger entertainment.”


Holoride has also launched a Reward Program for its native token $RIDE
Token-holders can now stake RIDE to get RIDE reward on the Maiar Dex: deposit opening on Feb 27, up to 25% APR.


➡️ Read the full announcement: https://bit.ly/36OZv87
➡️ Learn more about holoride: https://www.holoride.com/

#cryptonewsdaily #cryptocurrency #blockchain #blockchaingaming #playtoearn #cryptonews, #metaverse, #virtualreality

📢  PORTFOLIO UPDATE

bitsCrunch confirms $3.6M in Private Round 

bitsCrunch has closed a successful $3.6 private round led by Animoca Brands, Crypto.com Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and Polygon Studios. Other high-profile participating backers are Borderless Capital, Bison Funds, Mapleblock Capital, Morningstar Ventures, Spark Digital Capital, and angel investors from J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Meta.

The rising number of NFTs affected by wash trading, inflated NFT prices, and fake NFT marketplaces have created new security and data access challenges. In this context, the bitsCrunch team has developed a set of tools - based on AI technology - capable of monitoring the NFT space, identifying NFT copycat or forgeries, and warning about potential wash trading. Currently, the company can generate precise and reliable data about NFTs on Ethereum, Polygon, and Avalanche, while it is expecting to support soon other significant blockchains (specifically Solana, Polkadot, and Algorand). 

bitsCrunch has already attracted numerous clients and secured many collaborations and partnerships with well-known firms of the Crypto space, including Covalent, Rarible, Algoblock, Polygon Studios, and many more to come.

➡️ Read the full announcement: https://bit.ly/3hcONdA
➡️ Learn more about bitsCrunch: https://bitscrunch.com/

#cryptonewsdaily #cryptocurrency #blockchain #blockchaingaming #playtoearn #cryptonews

📢  PORTFOLIO UPDATE - Bware Labs Raises $6M in Series A Round

Bware has raised $6M during its Series A round, bringing the company valuation to $50M. Many VC firms joined the session, including Hypersphere Ventures, Blizzard, Infinity Ventures Crypto (IVC), Woodstock Fund, Figment, Axia8 Ventures, CoinGecko Ventures, and many others, as well as participation from existing investors The Spartan Group, GBV Capital, Morningstar Ventures, Ascensive Assets.

Bware Labs team provides a decentralized user-friendly platform to connect blockchain APIs users - as developers and organizations - and node providers to facilitate and strengthen their collaborations. This infrastructure allows Endpoint customers to choose a plan to access fully-fledged endpoints (RPC, REST, WSS, GraphQL) while enabling node owners to integrate their full nodes to gain rewards by completing APIs requests. 

Brian Weaver, Engineering Manager at Hypersphere, recently stated: "The team's expertise and vision will enable builders to focus on developing multi-chain applications while eliminating much of the costly infrastructure overhead. Bware has built a strong team of experts who are capable of meeting the requirements of today's projects while simultaneously scaling to meet the needs of future chains and customers."


➡️ Read the full announcement: https://bit.ly/3HgkPQu
➡️ Learn more about Bware Labs: https://bwarelabs.com/

#cryptonewsdaily #cryptocurrency #blockchain #blockchaingaming #playtoearn #cryptonews

📢  PORTFOLIO UPDATE - Ethernity Chain lands $20M seed round and launches Ethernal Labs

Ethernity Chain has secured a $20M seed round backed by Thomas Vu (Head of Creative and Franchise Development at Riot Games), Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO), and Michael Rubin ( CEO at Fanatics, Inc.) Among existing investors, Morningstar Ventures, Ripple, Algorand, Polygon Studios, and Kenetic Capital, which participated in the $2.8M strategic round back in March 2021.

Ethernity Chain is an NFT marketplace offering authenticated and licensed NFT from well-known sports, history, music, and entertainment brands. With the funding round, the Ethernity Chain team has also announced the launch of Ethernal Labs, the new umbrella company focused on developing Metaverse and Play-2-Earn gaming. It will be the first-of-its-kind incubator and technology studio to apply the interactivity and utility of web3 to attract notable brands, top artists, and individuals into a new ecosystem of decentralized apps.

The native token ERN will be playing the crucial role of enabling users and partners to buy and trade across all of the platform's offerings. In this regard, Ethernity CEO and Founder Nick Rose Ntertsas states: "The power of the ERN token, in conjunction with the variety of platforms and branches that will be available to users, offers the platform unmatched potential in terms of what we can offer to both users and creators. We hope to make Ethernal Labs a provider of gaming, art, and media - essentially, a studio system or incubator for the world of NFTs and the Web 3 creator economy."

Read the full announcement: ➡️ https://bit.ly/369vy2p
Learn more about Ethernity Chain: ➡️ https://ethernity.io/

#cryptonewsdaily #cryptocurrency #blockchain #blockchaingaming #playtoearn #cryptonews

💫 NEW INVESTMENT - Primex Finance Lands $5.7M Seed Funding

Cross-chain prime brokerage liquidity protocol Primex Finance has successfully raised $5.7M in its recent seed round. The Primex Team has confirmed to use the funds to sustain product development in preparation for the V1 launch expected later this year.

Co-led by Stratos Technologies and CoinFund, the session has attracted many well-known VCs: Hypersphere Ventures, GoldenTree Asset Management Wintermute, GSR, LedgerPrime, NxGen, MASK NETWORKS SL, Morningstar Ventures, HG Ventures, Formless Capital, Peech Capital, and many others, as well as notable angel investors.

Founded in June 2021, Primex Finance allows DeFi users providing liquidity to pools called "credit buckets" - backed by trading profits worldwide - to receive interests and profit-based fees from deals performed through these buckets. 
"In developing Primex, our mission is to unite the two biggest DeFi use cases: DEXs and lending, into a new ecosystem, as well as give access to margin trading in a truly decentralized way," said Dmitry Tolok, co-founder of Primex Finance.

The Primex team is building a protocol to tackle the DeFi challenges related to the complexity of cross-margin and interoperability required to progress decentralized finance.

➡️ Read the full announcement: https://bit.ly/3Laoq5G
➡️ Learn more about Primex Finance: https://primex.finance/

#cryptonewsdaily #cryptocurrency #blockchain #blockchaingaming #playtoearn #cryptonews #gaming #investment #digital

VENTURES:MORNINGSTAR

Morningstar Ventures