Weekly funding news: Mastercard acquires BVNK and Yellow Card completes a $40 million financing round, while numerous funding rounds are announced in the AI and blockchain sectors.
One of the biggest developments this week was Mastercard completing its acquisition of BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure company. Meanwhile, Yellow Card completed a $40 million strategic financing round backed by Standard Chartered, Sony and others, to expand its Global USD Accounts service and strengthen stablecoin payments infrastructure in global markets.
In the AI sector, Firmus announced a $2 billion financing round, Lumilens raised more than $700 million, and Volta Infra raised $300 million, with the funds to be used to expand AI data center infrastructure, edge processing and cloud infrastructure. Series financing rounds by Zenity, Sapiom and June were also reported, while Avatar Robotics and Exclaim Robotics secured funding in the robotics sector.
Activity was also strong across the CeFi, RWA and Web3 sectors. InvestiFi raised $20 million, JPYC completed a Series B totaling $38 million, and Dow Protocol raised $10.5 million in seed funding, while funding rounds by startups including Vangrid and Bundle were also reported. Mastercard has also completed its acquisition of BVNK and is expected to strengthen its stablecoin services going forward.
Multiple institutional investors continue to direct capital toward the AI sector, with activity by prominent investors and funds such as Index Ventures, Sequoia and 224 Ventures drawing attention. This week saw infrastructure startups raise funding while companies pursued acquisitions and investments on multiple fronts.