Flashbots Achieves Unicorn Status
Crypto funding fell on a weekly basis to $153 million compared to $219 million last week. Notably, 10 of the 15 deals announced this week secured funding within the $0-$10 million range. This is significant because it continues a trend of crypto VCs increasingly allocating capital towards early-stage funding rounds and being more selective in later stages. Our team highlighted this trend in our Q2 2023 Crypto Fundraising Report.
Infrastructure-related projects received the most funding this week, with seven deals totaling $100 million. Flashbots received $60 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation in its Series B round, making the project one of four that have raised at unicorn valuations in 2023. Interestingly, Flashbots picked investors based on a reverse pitch format where VCs presented their case for decentralization to win allocation in the round. Flashbots focuses on Maximal Extratable Value (MEV), utilizing their services as block producers on Ethereum to extract value by reordering, including, or excluding transactions within a block. This has become an extremely lucrative business and a key component in the Ethereum ecosystem. Our team covered MEV in depth as part of our Crypto Concepts series.
Funding by Category
Funding by Deal Stage
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