The interest of investment funds in crypto startups has increased recently, with a significant increase in investments especially in February. According to data from DefiLlama, crypto startups received a whopping $485 million in investments in February. This is 5.3% more than in January and the highest amount in the last quarter. The majority of this money, $387 million, went to startups working on the basic infrastructure of crypto. The largest investment was $100 million from a16z in EigenLayer during a private financing round.
Venture capitalists pay attention to different sectors
EtherFi, a liquid staking platform, received $27 million in a Series A funding round led by Bullish and CoinFund. Oobit, a payment platform, also successfully raised $25 million, with Tether and CMCC Global leading the round.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) projects also received a lot of attention, with more than $48 million invested in February. Superform Labs, which is building a marketplace for returns, raised $6.5 million in a seed round led by Polychain Capital. Omega, which wants to build a DeFi ecosystem on bitcoin, raised $6 million in a private round, with contributions from Borderless Capital and Blockchain.com.
Web3 applications, which focus on the future of the decentralized web, also attracted nearly $18 million in investment. Beoble, which is working on a web3 messaging app and social platform, received the largest investment in this sector, $7 million from Samsung Next and Hashkey Capital, among others.
The gaming sector also received significant funding, with $33 million targeted at new game studios. Helika, a gaming studio, raised $8 million in a Series A round led by Pantera Capital. Pixelmon, a web3 game, attracted $8 million from Animoca Ventures and Delphi Ventures.
Decline in VC investments
Despite strong activity in February, broader market research from PitchBook in October points to a slowdown in overall investment in the crypto market. In the third quarter of 2023, venture capitalists invested $2 billion in the sector, a decline of 63% compared to the same period in 2022. According to PitchBook analyst Robert Le, this decline is due to smaller deals, indicating a cautious approach from investors amid of a fluctuating market.
Source: https://bitcoinmagazine.nl/nieuws/groei-investeringen-venture-capitalists-crypto-startups
