Pumping the Brakes

Venture Capital slowed down the money printer by 58% compared to last week, raising $462 million for this week. The number of projects funded (32) was still relatively elevated, but there weren’t any big-ticket deals that broke $100 million – there were four deals above $100 million last week. Similar to the week prior, Infrastructure startups led the raises with $165 million. Next in line was Web3 at $124 million. Metaverse/Gaming and CeFi raised $70 million and $60 million, respectively. There were only three DeFi projects closing funding rounds, totaling $37 million, and two NFT projects getting a cumulative $6 million.

There was no activity in capital markets, which one would expect with the rising interest rates making money more challenging to acquire in an unstable near-term future for crypto. Five new funds were created, with war chests adding up to $1.1 billion. The behemoth of the week was a $600 million a16z fund that will focus almost entirely on metaverse/gaming startups.

Deal of The Week