A Bitcoin-denominated life insurance firm regulated by the Bermuda Monetary Authority called meanwhile has secured $40 million in a Series A funding round.

The company, whose pioneering product is a Bitcoin (BTC) denominated Whole Life Insurance, announced it raised the funding in a round co-led by venture capital firms fulgur.ventures and Framework Ventures.

Fulgur.ventures is a BTC-focused VC, while Framework Ventures is a leading investor in decentralized finance and crypto-native funds. Meanwhile also attracted participation from Wences Casares, a Bitcoin pioneer and co-founder of Bitcoin-enabled Xapo Bank.

The company, founded three years ago, will use the capital injection to accelerate the global rollout of its BTC-denominated life insurance and annuities. It aims to bring its insurance offerings to millions of users, with products designed to protect against various risks.

“Everyone deserves access to financial products that maintain their value over time—especially for long-term planning and family protection. This funding empowers us to reach more people who are concerned about political risk, currency risk, inflation risk, or regime risk,” the firm wrote on X.

The Bitcoin-denominated insurance product provides features that traditional financial products do not. It includes protection from currency debasement, as well as tax advantages and on-demand liquidity.

“One impossible task was creating a globally unique life insurer entirely denominated in Bitcoin,” said Zac Townsend, founder of meanwhile. “We accept premiums, pay claims, and conduct our audited financials, reserves, and solvency calculations entirely in Bitcoin”

For Bitcoin holders, the company’s insurance policies go beyond the preservation of wealth for future generations. Policyholders gain exposure to Bitcoin’s long-term growth potential.

Meanwhile previously raised $20.5 million in its seed round, which attracted backing from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley, among others.

This week, Blum, the telegram-based cryptocurrency trading platform, announced the completion of its seed funding round.

Announcing via X post on 12 Feb, Blum has received $5 million in pre-seed and seed funding, with major investment coming from the prominent VC firm, Gumi Cryptos. Other funders included YZi Labs, Spartan Capital, OKX Ventures, Wintermute, No Limit Holdings, and Bitscale. This comes after in September, it received an investment from Binance Labs, one of the largest cryptoexchanges, Binance’s venture capital firm.

Blum is set to use the $5M funding to fuel its 2025 vision of providing Blum’s 90M+ users a seamless and innovative trading ecosystem. Currently available across over 30 Blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Solana, Binance Smart Chain, and TON, its hybrid exchange model allows users to trade tokens seamlessly without the need to switch between multiple platforms.

Blum has secured $5M in pre-seed and seed funding, paving the way for the future of trading for our 90M+ users!

Led by @GumiCryptos and backed by @yzilabs, @TheSpartanGroup, @nolimithodl, @OKX_Ventures, @topdotco, @BitscaleCapital, and @wmt_ventures, this funding fuels our… pic.twitter.com/aohxybr7ee

— Blum (@blumcrypto) February 12, 2025

Blum to use funding for

Founded by former Vice-president at Binance, Gleb Kostarev acting as CEO and one of the co-founders, Blum since its launch in July last year has grown in both popularity and user base. With its telegram-based trading bot designed specifically for Gen Z and millenials in mind, it has been working towards making crypto trading simple for new and novice users. Its transition from its earlier Tap-to-Earn model to Trade-to-Earn in 2025 also aimed at incentivising the users for the same.
Now with the received funding, Blum is set to develop and work on:

• multi-chain trading bots,
• AI-powered Memepad,
• Perpetual Futures trading.

The development of multi-chain trading bots will add another layer of functionality and convenience for its users. This would make it easier for traders to access and interact with a diverse set of assets across multiple blockchains.

The AI-powered Memepad platform that it aims to develop further is what currently allows its users to launch their own Memecoins and then trade with ease. The AI tools embedded in it automate the steps involved in creating a new memecoin. This removes the complexity that typically comes with token creation, such as coding smart contracts or deploying them on a blockchain. Blum’s memepad is ranked as second globally, with over $200 million in trading volume, and guiding the creation of 200,000 tokens created in which over 380 coins have been listed on DEXs.

By developing Memepad, Blum is tapping into the growing trend of memecoins and community-driven projects, which have become a significant part of the cryptocurrency landscape.

Blum to become the full-fledged DEX?

In November last year, Blum also received an investment from The Open Platform (TOP), a venture builder in Telegram’s TON ecosystem.

As the TON currently lacks a major Decentralised Exchange (DEX), Blum using its Telegram-based trading and Trade-to-Earn feature can complete the vacuum in TON’s need for a major DEX. Its vision of expanding its trading services beyond TON can accelerate its development into a full-fledged decentralised exchange. This will allow users to swap not only tokens available on TON but cross-chain.

There are certain challenges too. Currently, Blum is more of a hybrid platform that integrates multiple blockchains and allows users to trade across them. To become a true DEX, Blum would need to operate on decentralized governance and infrastructure, ensuring that there’s no central authority controlling the platform. While Blum aggregates liquidity across different chains, it would need to establish deeper liquidity pools, and facilitate both automated market makers (AMMs) and possibly order book-based trading to appeal to a wide variety of traders.

Thus, as Blum seeks to expand to wider and diverse markets including APAC – as highlighted by one of its co-founders – Blum’s evolution into a developed DEX and its efforts at making crypto trading simple is something that must be closely monitored.

Disclaimer: The content may include the personal opinion of the author and is subject to market conditions. Do your market research before investing in cryptocurrencies. The author or the publication does not hold any responsibility for your personal financial loss.

Sei Foundation has unveiled a $65 million venture fund aimed at investments in the decentralized science ecosystem. 

In an announcement first published by The Block, the Sei Foundation said its “Sapien Capital – Open Science Fund I” will look to invest in DeSci projects building on the layer 1 blockchain Sei (SEI).

With the crypto and blockchain space transforming science funding, and DeSci research gaining traction, the $65 million fund aims to redefine the sector. According to the Sei Foundation, Sapien Capital will not only change how science is funded but also how it is shared and validated.

According to the announcement, the new fund is not designed for the Sei ecosystem and, therefore, does not include grants.

Instead, it is targeted at venture investments in DeSci startups, including those focused on gamified drug discovery and wearables. The fund will invest in both project tokens and equity, with check sizes ranging from $100,000 to $2 million.

Sapien Capital plans to fully deploy its capital within the next three to four years, Sei Foundation’s head of business development and investments, Justin Barlow, said.

Interest in DeSci has VC investment from some of the leading venture funds in the space. This includes a16z Crypto’s investment in AminoChain last September and YZi Labs, previously Binance Labs’ bet on BIO Protocol in November.