Web3 Funds Load up on Dry Powder

Despite a cold start in the first week of 2023, funding has ramped back up, increasing from just $7M in the first week of 2023 to $65M and $186M in the last two weeks, respectively. The majority of this funding came from Web3 and NFTs, which accounted for roughly $80M each week. There were also four Web3 and NFT related venture funds the past two weeks, totaling a massive $1.85B in funding. The largest of these funds was Venum Venture Funds (VVF), which raised $1B. VVF was founded by the Venom Foundation and Iceberg Capital and is planning to invest in pre-seed to Series A rounds for Web3 protocols and other decentralized applications. The fund is led by Peter Knez, ex-CIO of Blackrock and former global CIO for fixed income at Barclays Global Investors. Another large fund raised this week was HashKey Capital’s third fund (Fund III) with a total commitment of $500M. This fund will focus on on both Web3 as well as crypto infrastructure. Other Web3-related funds raised this week were Sequoia Seed Fund V and Escape Velocity Fund I. Aside from Web3 & NFTs and infrastructure, the other sectors lagged the past two weeks. DeFi and CeFi only received $10M and $3M, respectively the past week and Metaverse & Gaming had no funding the first two weeks and only $10M of funding this ...