2022 Crypto Fundraising Report
Executive Summary
Click Here for the full report.
- Since late 2021, crypto markets have struggled in the face of a challenging macroeconomic background highlighted by rampant inflation and geopolitical conflict. Asset price drawdowns were exacerbated by a violent unwind of unhealthy leverage in the space, which revealed outright fraudulent behavior among some of the industry’s most prominent figures. Despite these headwinds, crypto VC funding remained strong in 2022 and set a new high in yearly cumulative fundraising.
- CeFi and Infrastructure were the two verticals that garnered the most investment, whereas Web3 & NFT projects and companies had the highest deal count, albeit at earlier stages of development. The collapse of centralized entities across the industry discouraged investment into most verticals, particularly CeFi, during the back half of 2022.
- Public mining companies have seen increased distress throughout the year, which has clearly manifested in the private market. Mining represented the vertical with the least number of deals and capital raised.
- The breadth of early-stage investors expanded, with 388 different funds/companies leading at least one investment deal. A16z, Binance Labs, Polychain Capital, and Animoca Brands were the most active lead investors throughout 2022.
- Investment funds dedicated to the crypto industry thrived from a capital-raising perspective in 2022, raising over $23 billion. The largest was a16z’s $4.5 billion Crypto Fund IV.
- Bottom Line – The challenging macroeconomic backdrop and blowups by some of the industry’s most prominent names caused VC investment to wane in the second half of 2022. Despite this, private market investment remained resilient on an absolute basis. The $8.9 billion invested in 2H 2022 was greater than any year before 2021. We expect at least a portion of the seeds planted this past year to translate into world-changing products.
Key Slides From This Report…
Crypto Financing History (Slide 4)
2022 Fundraising Overview (Slide 5)
Verticals Summary (Slide 6)
Deal Stage Summary (Slide 7)
2022 Largest Crypto Funds Raised (Slide 40)
Reports you may have missed
WEEKLY RECAP Crypto funding rose 92% from $213 million to $410 million, one of the highest weekly totals in months. The majority of funding came from two deals: Monad’s $225 million round (DotW) and Auradine’s $80 million Series B round, the first mining deal of 2024. Auradine’s Teraflux family of Bitcoin ASIC miners has set new performance and energy efficiency benchmarks and has shown robust field performance, which has helped...
WEEKLY RECAP Funding fell 27% from $282 million last week to $206 million this week across 34 deals. Triple-digit funding seems to be the new normal, as there has been a notable uptick in the private market in recent weeks. Despite the overall increase in activity, there has been a lack of CeFi-related projects in recent weeks, with just one deal in each of the last two weeks. Agora was the singular...
WEEKLY RECAP Despite a short week in observance of Good Friday, weekly funding rose 17% from $228 million to $268 million across 31 deals. March funding totaled $960 million (with three days remaining), representing the highest figures since March ’23. Monthly deal count has reached 142 thus far, similarly marking the highest tally since 2022. Gaming companies had a strong week of funding, raising $114 million, being slightly edged out...
