Market Cooling, Investors Keep Going: Top 5 Crypto Funding Deals Last Week

Despite the subdued performance of the crypto market last week, capital's pursuit of high-potential opportunities within the Web3 remained undeterred. According to Messari's latest report, the second week of March 2025 witnessed several significant funding events in crypto. These transactions not only highlight the confidence of capital markets in the future of Web3, but also inject new vitality into the industry. Below, we summarize the five largest and most noteworthy funding cases of the week, offering a glimpse into market hotspots and future trends.

1. Binance: $2 Billion Funding Round

Binance, one of the world's largest crypto CEX, once again demonstrated its unshakable position in the industry. This week, Binance announced a $2 billion investment from Abu Dhabi’s state-owned investment firm MGX. This marks the exchange's first institutional funding round and the largest single-round financing in the history of the crypto industry.

This investment not only provides Binance with substantial financial support but also signifies its further breakthroughs in global regulatory compliance and market expansion. Recently, Binance has been deeply involved in the Middle East, forming partnerships with local governments and establishing itself as a dominant force in the regional crypto market. MGX's investment underscores the capital market's high recognition of Binance's ability to expand in emerging markets.

2. Mesh: $82 Million Funding Round

Mesh is a leading crypto payment network that aims to enhance the convenience of payments and settlements between users and merchants by enabling seamless conversions between assets and stablecoins. Mesh is committed to connecting hundreds of trading platforms, mainstream wallets, payment service providers, and enterprises worldwide, creating a unified operational network.Currently, Mesh provides payment, deposit, and transfer services to over 300 wallets and trading platforms.

In the same period, Mesh announced the completion of an $82 million funding round led by Paradigm, with additional participation from Consensys and AltaIR Capital, to expand its stablecoin-powered global payment settlement network.

3. RedotPay: $40 Million Funding Round

RedotPay is a crypto payment solutions provider focused on crypto-to-fiat conversion services. It aims to offer seamless digital currency payment experiences for merchants and consumers worldwide by reducing transaction costs and improving payment efficiency.

As part of the week's funding activity, the company announced a $40 million funding round led by Lightspeed, with participation from Galaxy Ventures and Accel, to accelerate its global business expansion.

RedotPay has already partnered with several cross-border e-commerce platforms, promoting the adoption of digital currency payments in real-world consumption scenarios. Its strong implementation capabilities position RedotPay as one of the frontrunners in the crypto payment space.

4. Axelar: $30 Million Funding Round

Axelar is a decentralized cross-chain communication network, aiming to level-up interoperability in Web3 by connecting heterogeneous blockchains and enabling asset mobility and program composability in an optimized way for both builders and end-users. During this period, Axelar announced a $30 million funding round led by Arrington Capital, Electric Capital, and Distributed Global.

Recently, Axelar has achieved significant breakthroughs in cross-chain technology. Its protocol has been integrated by some major blockchain projects such as Avalanche, significantly improving interconnectivity between different chains. Axelar is seen as a key infrastructure for advancing interoperation among all new interconnected blockchains and applications, resulting in limitless network effects.

5. Vest: $5 Million Funding Round

Vest is a quantitative research firm developing financial infrastructure that enables real-time, universal risk pricing. As a neutral and verifiable intermediary, Vest will enable participants to share risk data without exposing proprietary information, leading to greater capital efficiency, improved liquidity provisioning, fairer pricing, and more accurate risk assessments across lending, trading, and credit markets. As a proof of its concept, Vest is launching a perpetual futures exchange to demonstrate how universal risk assessment could replace the order bboks and market makers pricing models and enable a fair, predictable, and liquid trading environment.

Completing the week's notable funding events, Vest announced a $5 million funding round, with investors including Big Brain Holdings, Amber Group, and Selini Capital.

This week’s funding activity highlights a strong focus on exchanges (CEXs and DEXs), crypto payment networks, and cross-chain interoperability platforms. These developments demonstrate that, despite market uncertainties, institutional investors still remain confident in the long-term potential of blockchain infrastructure and its real-world applications.