Muted Funding During the Holidays
Weekly Recap
As expected, funding totals during the holidays were comparatively low. Both total funding and deal count fell by approximately 70%. There were 11 deals this week totaling $45 million in funding. All disclosed funding amounts fell into the Infrastructure and DeFi categories, while Web3 tallied two deals for undisclosed amounts. Infrastructure-led deal counts among categories (7), and there were no CeFi or Gaming deals to end the year. Funding was concentrated in Series A rounds with two $10 million investments into Usual and Avalon Labs (both DeFi). Although Q4 funding looked bleak through October and November, there was a rebound in December, totaling about $900 million (nearly double November’s amount), bringing the Q4 total to $1.95 billion across 307 deals.
Funding by Category
Funding by Stage
Deal of the Week
Usual, a decentralized stablecoin protocol, raised $10 million in a Series A round led by Binance Labs and Kraken Ventures. Other investors included Ethena, Galaxy Digital, M^0, Ondo, GSR, Wintermute, and others. Usual is a decentralized fiat-backed stablecoin issuer that redistributes value and ownership to users through its native token USUAL.
Why is This Deal of the Week?
The two largest stab...Reports you may have missed
Still Cautious Ahead of April 2nd, Elevated Odds of a Decisive Near-Term Move (±15%)
While some of the risks that prompted our cautious stance in early February have been partially mitigated, most remain—with the ongoing trade war still the most pertinent. Therefore, we believe it remains prudent to exercise patience. That said, improving liquidity conditions, favorable seasonality, and the possibility of a budget-neutral BTC acquisition strategy offer reasons for optimism. Regardless of the direction, depressed implied volatility (BVIV < 50) suggests that a significant...