$400 Million Acquisition Tops $200 Million-Plus Venture Investments Amid Weak Corporate Activity

7 Min Read Tags:
  • Incrypted tracked 19 investment deals between Sept. 1 and Sept. 12, 2026, with disclosed amounts in 13 transactions exceeding $804 million.
  • The period included about $204 million in venture funding, a $200 million financing for Félix Pago and Circle’s planned $400 million acquisition of Tazapay.
  • No token sales or ecosystem and DAO funding allocations were recorded.

The transactions covered venture rounds, corporate financing, mergers and acquisitions, strategic investments and other capital-raising structures.

Venture capital

Eleven projects raised about $204 million from venture investors during the period.

Nasdaq invested $100 million in Payward, the parent of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, at a $21 billion valuation. The investment expands the companies’ partnership on tokenized-stock trading infrastructure. Kraken plans to distribute Nasdaq tokenized stocks while preserving the voting rights associated with ordinary shares.

Texas-based Latitude raised $35 million in a Series A round led by Oak HC/FT, with NEA, Coinbase, Lightspeed Faction and OpenFX participating. Latitude is developing a global system that allows businesses to transfer money using stablecoins.

OpenReserve raised $25 million in a round led by a16z crypto, alongside Jump Crypto, Acrew, Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, Clocktower, Quona, AAF Management and Zero Knowledge Ventures. It is developing a 24-hour national bank combining banking, payments, lending, digital-asset custody and tokenized deposits. The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted preliminary conditional approval, but OpenReserve must meet requirements including at least $210 million in initial capital and additional approvals before operating. It also plans a stablecoin subsidiary.

Diameter Pay closed a $10 million Series A round co-led by CMT Digital and Lightspeed Faction. Its institutional payments infrastructure connects traditional US-dollar accounts and payment rails with stablecoins. The platform has processed more than $10 billion since the start of 2026.

Firelight raised $8 million in a seed round led by Gumi Cryptos Capital, with Maven 11, Metalayer, Joint Effects and Tribe Capital participating. The DeFi protocol is developing onchain protection against exploits, smart-contract bugs and economic risks. It uses XRP to back coverage, plans to add bitcoin and XLM, and expects its first integrations in September.

MemeBitcoin raised $8 million from Gemhead Capital, Archer Capital, M2M Capital and Mayer Venture. The project plans to fund early MBTC access, its website, forum, wallet connections and Proof of Viral mechanism before a public campaign and preparations for centralized-exchange listings.

Antarctic Exchange raised $7 million at a $70 million valuation from Valisa Capital Markets, Lucidity Capital, Republic Crypto and a consortium of proprietary traders. The Singapore-based perpetuals exchange aims to combine self-custody and decentralized-exchange transparency with centralized-exchange-style speed, leverage and trading tools.

UZ Capital made a $6 million strategic investment in RealGo, which combines augmented reality, artificial intelligence, geolocation services and onchain assets to turn meme intellectual property into collectible, usable and tradable digital assets.

Colombian fintech Plenti raised $3 million in a seed round led by Tether, with Verda Ventures participating. Plenti, which reports more than 150,000 active users and over $3.1 billion in annual transaction volume, plans to expand from Colombia into Peru and Bolivia.

Prediction-market team-trading platform ParlayX completed a $1.25 million pre-seed round led by Dreamcraft Ventures. Onchain yield protocol Polaris raised $1 million from participants including the Ethereum Foundation, Fusion managed by IPOR, Altitude, Liquity and LI.FI, as well as more than 30 founders and investors.

Funds and corporate financing

GMO VenturePartners held an interim close of its eighth fund, raising about ¥10 billion ($65 million) toward a ¥12 billion cap. GFF8 will focus on “fintech for the AI era,” including stablecoins, tokenized deposits, AI-based credit underwriting and next-generation financial infrastructure.

Tether and Fasanara Capital launched a $400 million private-credit fund for consumers and small and medium-sized businesses through fintech platforms in more than 60 countries. They plan to seek up to $3 billion in additional institutional capital.

TRM Labs expanded its Blockchain Capital-led Series C without disclosing the amount. The transaction valued the financial-crime investigation technology company at $2 billion, twice its February 2026 valuation.

Between Sept. 1 and Sept. 11, Félix Pago secured $200 million, comprising $87 million in equity led by Andreessen Horowitz and a $113 million credit line from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund. The WhatsApp-based remittance platform, which uses stablecoins and has processed more than $8 billion, plans to add lending and savings products for Latin American immigrants in the US.

Mergers and acquisitions

Circle agreed to acquire Singapore-based cross-border payments platform Tazapay for about $400 million in Circle stock, subject to adjustments for debt, cash and transaction costs. Tazapay processes more than $25 billion annually, about 60% through stablecoin transactions.

Sei Labs acquired Bilinear Labs on undisclosed terms. Its team will join development of Sei Network and Sei Giga, while Bilinear Labs will close on Sept. 14. Prediction-market data platform Oddpool joined Kalshi; terms were not disclosed.

Robinhood also partnered with Crypto.com and OG.com, routing some American-football event contracts through Crypto.com’s US Commodity Futures Trading Commission-regulated exchange and clearing infrastructure. Uniswap Labs purchased PONS tokens as part of a deeper partnership with the Robinhood Chain launchpad.

Investment trends

Incrypted identified Robinhood, a16z crypto and Coinbase Ventures as the period’s most active investors. Investor attention centered primarily on blockchain infrastructure and services and the DeFi sector.

Source: Incrypted

TAGGED:
$400 Million Acquisition Tops $200 Million-Plus Venture Investments Amid Weak Corporate Activity

Incrypted tracked 19 investment deals from Sept. 1 to Sept. 12, 2026, with disclosed amounts in 13 transactions exceeding $804 million, including about $204 million in venture funding.

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