Dow Protocol said on Aug. 7 that it completed a $10.5 million seed round backed by MH Ventures, Mapleblock, Animoca Brands, Arcane Group, HSKChain, Essentia Partners and Quartet Group to expand a blockchain-based working-capital model for ecommerce merchants. The company said its PayFi real-world asset structure lets asset servicing partners advance funds against merchants' pending receivables using platform-integrated credit-risk data, with financing available within seconds and some cross-border settlements completed as fast as the same day. Repayments are deducted automatically from merchants' platform balances once marketplace payouts are released. Dow Protocol said the model is designed to address a 14- to 28-day settlement delay that merchants often face on ecommerce platforms, compared with traditional financing processes that can take two to three months. The fundraising comes as tokenized real-world assets continue to expand across on-chain finance, with CoinShares reporting that RWA deposits across decentralized lending platforms and exchanges reached $7.4 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up from $2.3 billion a year earlier.