Web3 Weekly Funding Report: February 9–15, 2026

The week of February 9–15, 2026, marked one of the most significant periods for Web3 funding in early 2026, with over 22 deals recorded and $124.67 million in disclosed capital deployed across mergers & acquisitions, seed rounds, strategic investments, and pre-seed funding. The headline was Mirae Asset’s $92.27 million acquisition of South Korean crypto exchange Korbit, but the week was equally defined by strategic moves from Wall Street heavyweights BlackRock entered Uniswap’s DeFi ecosystem, ARK Invest and Citadel Securities backed LayerZero’s new Layer-1 blockchain, and Tether continued its aggressive investment spree.

Week at a Glance

Funding Distribution by Amount

Among the eight deals with disclosed amounts, the distribution was heavily skewed by the Korbit acquisition. Excluding Korbit, the remaining seven deals totaled approximately $28.7 million, with seed rounds and private token sales dominating disclosed capital. The average disclosed deal size (excluding M&A) was approximately $4.1 million, reflecting a healthy appetite for early- to mid-stage Web3 infrastructure projects.

Deals by Sector

DeFi and infrastructure deals led the week by volume, reflecting continued investor conviction in the buildout of institutional-grade on-chain systems. Payments and finance was the second-most active category, anchored by Levl’s $7 million raise and Superset’s stablecoin infrastructure play. Exchange and trading saw activity through the Korbit M&A and edgeX’s Circle Ventures backing.

Korbit Acquisition – $92.27M

Mirae Asset Consulting, a subsidiary of South Korea’s Mirae Asset Group, agreed to acquire a 92.06% controlling stake in Korean cryptocurrency exchange Korbit for approximately 133.48 billion won (~$93 million) in an all-cash transaction, marking a major move as Mirae Asset Acquires South Korea’s Korbit. The deal involves acquiring 26.9 million shares previously held by NXC Corporation (the Nexon parent company) and SK Planet, a subsidiary of SK Square.

The acquisition was approved by Mirae Asset’s board on February 5, and the regulatory filing was released on February 13. Mirae Asset stated the purpose is “to secure future growth drivers through digital-asset (virtual-asset) businesses”. This transaction marks one of the most significant ownership changes in South Korea’s crypto industry and signals deep institutional entry from a traditional financial services conglomerate into digital assets.

Institutional Mega-Moves

BlackRock × Uniswap: TradFi Meets DeFi

BlackRock made its first foray into decentralized finance by listing its $2.1 billion USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) on Uniswap through the UniswapX protocol. This integration allows whitelisted institutional investors to trade tokenized Treasury-backed assets 24/7 with near-instant settlement. In conjunction, BlackRock made a strategic investment in the Uniswap ecosystem by purchasing UNI tokens marking the first time a DeFi governance token has appeared on BlackRock.

The UNI token surged over 13% on the announcement day, trading around $3.84. Uniswap founder Hayden Adams revealed the collaboration came together after 18 months of meetings between Uniswap’s SoHo office and BlackRock’s Manhattan headquarters. Former Uniswap COO Mary-Catherine Lader, a onetime BlackRock executive, helped broker the deal.

BlackRock’s Robert Mitchnick, global head of digital assets, called it “a notable step in the convergence of tokenized assets with decentralized finance”. Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo added that the integration brings together “the trust and standards of finance with the speed and openness for which DeFi is known”.

LayerZero’s “Zero” Blockchain – ARK Invest, Citadel Securities & Tether

LayerZero Labs announced the launch of Zero, a new Layer-1 blockchain targeting institutional financial markets with a projected throughput of 2 million transactions per second. The project secured strategic investments from three major players in a single week:

• ARK Invest became a shareholder in both LayerZero equity and ZRO tokens, with CEO Cathie Wood joining Zero’s advisory board

• Citadel Securities made a strategic token investment in ZRO, the network’s native governance asset. Citadel handles approximately 35% of retail stock trades in the U.S.

• Tether announced a separate strategic investment in LayerZero Labs to support cross-chain infrastructure and its USDt0 blockchain-agnostic stablecoin​

The blockchain leverages zero-knowledge proofs and the Jolt zkVM to achieve performance that LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino claims “moves the industry’s roadmap forward by at least a decade”. Institutional partners exploring the platform include DTCC (for its Collateral App Chain), Intercontinental Exchange (for 24/7 markets), and Google Cloud (for AI-agent micropayments).

Major Seed & Growth Rounds

Bullshot: $7.5M Private Token Sale

Bullshot, a next-generation meme token launcher built on BNB Chain, Bullshot raised $7.5 million from Animoca Brands, TBV Ventures, OneAM Capital, and other strategic backers. The platform enables communities to create, trade, and scale viral tokens with built-in mechanics promoting transparency, liquidity, and real user participation. The capital will fund product development, ecosystem partnerships, security enhancements, and global user acquisition as Bullshot aims to become the “infrastructure layer for the meme economy”.

Levl: $7M Seed Round

Levl, a unified platform bridging traditional banking and stablecoin-powered global payments, closed a $7 million seed round led by Galaxy Ventures with participation from Protagonist, Deus X, Blockchain Builders Fund, OpenFX, FalconX, CMCC, Variant Fund, and strategic angels from Revolut, Brex, and Comun. In its first four months of operation, Levl has surpassed $1 billion in annualized transaction volume, enabling same-day settlement and near-real-time cross-border payments across fiat and stablecoins (USDC, USDT). The round positions Levl at the intersection of banking rails and blockchain settlement, a sector seeing accelerated institutional interest.

Superset: $4M Seed Round

Superset raised $4 million in seed funding co-led by 7RIDGE and Exponential Science Capital to build a “unified liquidity execution layer” for the $300 billion stablecoin economy. Additional backers include DWF Labs, OrangeDAO, Contribution Capital, Distributed Capital, and Astera Ventures. Superset addresses the structural fragmentation of stablecoin liquidity scattered across chains, venues, and instruments by abstracting execution and routing into a single connectivity layer that sits beneath aggregators, wallets, and trading venues.​

YOAKE / Record: $3.2M Strategic Round

Sony Innovation Fund (SIF) led a $3.2 million funding round for Yoake Entertainment to develop Record Protocol’s blockchain-based fandom infrastructure, in a deal highlighted by YOAKE Entertainment Raises $3.2M. The investment deepens collaboration with Sony Block Solutions Labs and targets the transformation of fan engagement through blockchain-powered verified fandom infrastructure across entertainment sectors. This move signals Sony’s continued commitment to advancing Web3 entertainment applications.

Pre-Seed Deals

Birch Hill: $2.5M Pre-Seed

Birch Hill Holdings, an institutional digital asset infrastructure firm focused on on-chain lending and tokenized asset markets, closed a $2.5 million pre-seed round co-led by ParaFi Capital and Castle Island Ventures, marking an early milestone as Birch Hill Raises $2.5M. Additional participation came from Nascent, FalconX Ventures, JST Digital, Flowdesk, and Coin Operated Group. The founding team includes a CEO with structured credit experience from Goldman Sachs and Cerberus Capital, alongside a CTO/COO team that built institutional risk systems within BlackRock’s Aladdin platform. The firm aims to address the infrastructure gap for institutions entering the $20 billion RWA and $300 billion stablecoin markets.

Xross Road: $1.5M Pre-Seed

Japanese IP creation and distribution platform Xross Road Raises $1.5 million pre-seed round co-led by Arbitrum Gaming Ventures and Decima Fund, with participation from Taisu Ventures and Baboon VC. Funds will accelerate the development of its core platform and “HANASEE,” an AI comic creation engine that transforms text into manga using multi-agent AI technology trained with professional comic artists. Xross Road plans to integrate a blockchain-based copyright management system for revenue distribution.

Strategic & Undisclosed Rounds

edgeX Circle Ventures Strategic Investment

Circle Ventures, the investment arm of USDC issuer Circle, announced a strategic investment in edgeX, a decentralized perpetual futures exchange. As part of the deal, Circle will integrate native USDC and its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) on the EDGE Chain, a Layer 3 blockchain purpose-built for performance-intensive trading. edgeX currently processes billions in daily trading volume with strong mobile adoption across Asia. RWA-linked perpetual markets (stock and commodity perps) have emerged as a key growth area for the platform.

Other Strategic Investments

M&A Activity

Beyond the Korbit headline deal, two additional M&A transactions occurred during the week:

• Fija (FIJA): Acquired by Keyrock, a leading market maker. Fija operates in the finance/banking, lending/borrowing, and yield aggregator space, and the acquisition strengthens Keyrock’s DeFi infrastructure capabilities.

• Inveniam: Acquired by MEASA Partners. Inveniam specializes in data integrity and valuation for private market assets, and MEASA’s acquisition signals interest in bridging Middle East capital with tokenized asset infrastructure.

Key Investor Activity

Most Active Investors of the Week

Institutional Trend Analysis

The week’s activity reveals a clear pattern: traditional finance institutions are no longer just experimenting with crypto they are making material capital commitments. BlackRock’s purchase of UNI tokens and listing of its $2.1 billion BUIDL fund on Uniswap represents the first direct DeFi integration by the world’s largest asset manager. ARK Invest taking equity in LayerZero Labs alongside a ZRO token position signals a dual conviction in both the company and the protocol. Citadel Securities, handling 35% of U.S. retail stock trades, is positioning for potential 24/7 tokenized market infrastructure.

Sector Themes

Stablecoin Infrastructure Dominance

Multiple deals this week centered on stablecoin plumbing Superset’s unified liquidity layer, Circle Ventures’ edgeX integration, Tether’s LayerZero investment, and Levl’s fiat-stablecoin bridge. With the stablecoin market capitalization at $300 billion, infrastructure plays are attracting significant capital from both crypto-native and traditional investors.

Institutional DeFi Convergence

The BlackRock-Uniswap and LayerZero-Citadel deals represent a paradigm shift. Institutional players are not building parallel systems they are integrating directly with existing DeFi protocols, lending unprecedented legitimacy to decentralized infrastructure.

RWA and Tokenization Momentum

From BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized fund to Birch Hill’s on-chain credit infrastructure, real-world asset tokenization continues to attract diverse capital. The convergence of RWA with DeFi trading (edgeX’s commodity perps), institutional lending (Birch Hill), and fiat-crypto bridges (Levl) suggests the sector is approaching a critical mass of interoperable infrastructure.

Asian Market Activity

Asia featured prominently: Mirae Asset’s Korbit acquisition underscores South Korea’s growing digital asset ambitions, Sony’s investment in YOAKE signals Japan’s entertainment-crypto nexus, and Xross Road represents Japan’s AI-blockchain creative economy. edgeX’s strong mobile adoption in Asia further highlights the region’s role as a crypto infrastructure hub.

Outlook

The week of February 9–15 demonstrated that the Web3 funding landscape is maturing rapidly, with institutional capital flowing not just to tokens but to the infrastructure that will underpin the next generation of financial markets. The convergence of TradFi giants (BlackRock, Citadel, ARK, Mirae Asset, Sony) with crypto-native innovators signals that the boundaries between traditional and decentralized finance are dissolving faster than many anticipated. With LayerZero’s Zero blockchain targeting a fall 2026 launch and BlackRock’s BUIDL now live on Uniswap, the infrastructure for institutional-scale DeFi is taking shape in real time.