Crypto Funds & Metaverse/Gaming have a Big Week

Funding declined from $573M last week to $352M this week, and total deals declined from 41 to 25 (please note that there were additional deals that hadn't been announced that we have added to last week since our previous Funding Friday). Interestingly, Metaverse/Gaming funding was one of the highest funded sectors for the second week in a row. Six Metaverse/Gaming deals were done, including a $75.3M raise for Animoca Brand's Metaverse/Gaming fund. Animoca Brands is one of the most well-established metaverse and gaming investors, and this raise puts their valuation at $5.9 billion. Web 3 funding also had a notable uptick this week, increasing from $42M to $173M, led by a $100M funding round in Gnosis Safe. Other categories such as DeFi and CeFi saw sharp declines, with funding decreasing ~85% each. 

On top of the Animoca Brands fund this week, three other significant funds were raised (Protagonist, Multicoin Capital, and 5ire), totaling $725M in funding. This shows that, despite the bear market, investors are still looking to allocate to crypto funds. Multicoin Capital is particularly notable as they were one of the best returning funds of 2021 (returning investors 20,287% from inception in 2017 to December of 2021). Multicoin's "Venture Fund III" will invest be...