News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: Digital asset investment platform Rockawayx has acquired digital asset hedge fund Relayer Capital, incorporating its directional long/short strategy into its approximately $2 billion investment platform. Relayer Capital founder Austin Barack will continue to oversee the strategy and assume the role of Chief Investment Officer of the newly renamed Rockawayx Liquid Opportunities Fund.Rockawayx CEO Viktor Fischer stated that the fund will invest in highly liquid crypto tokens and digital asset-related equities, with a focus on identifying assets that are mispriced relative to their business fundamentals, market position, or growth prospects. The fund is currently open to new external investors.Rockawayx disclosed that the strategy's estimated net return from the start of 2026 through August 21 stands at approximately 70%, outperforming a weighted portfolio of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana by 86 percentage points. Major contributing positions include Venice AI, Hyperliquid, Grass Network, Pump.fun, and Zcash, with investment themes centered on AI and tokenized real-world asset markets.The acquisition adds a directional liquid strategy to Rockawayx's venture capital and market-neutral businesses. Rockawayx also operates infrastructure and onchain liquidity divisions, noting that these capabilities support its team in identifying blockchain market opportunities across stages—from early-stage funding and token issuance to public market trading. (Bitcoin.com News)
Venice AI founder Erik Voorhees announced on Wednesday that the company has completed its first external funding round, raising $65 million at a $1 billion valuation. The round was led by Dragonfly, with participation from North Island Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Archetype, Liquid2 Ventures, and Morgan Creek. Launched in May 2024, Venice AI is a privacy-focused AI chatbot alternative platform designed to prevent storing user conversations on centralized company servers. Voorhees stated that Venice AI has surpassed 3 million users and has already achieved profitability in the first quarter. Voorhees said the new capital will be used to expand the Venice platform, which provides access to major open-source and proprietary AI models through a single interface and API. The annual issuance of Venice AI's native token, VVV, was reduced to 3 million tokens on Wednesday, used to reward token holders who support the network by staking VVV.
Venice AI founder Erik Voorhees stated on the X platform that to complete the $65 million Series A financing round, Venice chose to sell equity rather than directly sell VVV. Despite VVV's price increasing over 700% this year, Venice has not sold any tokens and currently holds over 30 million VVV, representing more than 37.5% of the total supply of 80 million tokens.Investors in this round received 8.98% equity, a vesting grant of 1.5 million VVV, and warrants to purchase 5 million VVV over the next 8 years. If all warrants are exercised, Venice's total financing will increase to $131.5 million. The relevant tokens are locked for 1 year and then unlock linearly over 3 years, with an expected average daily new circulation of less than 6,000 tokens. Venice stated that it will continue to maintain its tokenomics model of repurchasing and burning VVV with revenue.
Venice AI has announced the completion of a $65 million Series A funding round, led by Dragonfly, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, North Island Ventures, and others, at a valuation of $1 billion. The project primarily offers a platform that grants access to over 200 AI models while ensuring privacy.