New Year, Same Themes (DeFi and NFTs)
Key Takeaways
- Venture capital funds kicked off 2022 with $359 million invested in NFT projects that are focused on continuing to grow the NFT ecosystem through creator and project incubation. DeFi investment was also highly active, raising $396 million this week, mostly for expanding existing protocols’ product and service offerings. Web3.0 infrastructure projects raised $30 million, $6 million went to gaming, and Bitfarms is keeping its foot on the gas with a $100 million Bitcoin mining expansion roadmap.
- Active investors this week include Animoca Brands, CoinFund, DCG, and a16z.
- Deal of the Week: OpenSea raised $300 million at a $13.3 billion valuation as it continues to develop its platform infrastructure, add more products for its users, and invest in the growth of the NFT space.
Venture Capital Deals
Sygnum is a Swiss digital assets bank offering services like spot and options trading, custody, and crypto-backed fiat loans, among other traditional financing services for crypto. The bank raised $90 million in a Series B funding round that values the bank at $800 million. The round was led by Sun Hung Kai & Co. with other investors including Animoca Brands, SBI Holdings, and SCB 10X, among others. Sygnum is using the capital to add new DeFi products a...Reports you may have missed
WEEKLY RECAP Total funding fell 49% week-over-week from $188 million to $95 million, and total deal count decreased modestly from 23 to 31. Infrastructure and DeFi were the two leaders in fundraising, accounting for approximately two-thirds of the total. The week's largest deal was a $15 million Series A round completed by Bluesky, a Web3 social network. Party Icons was the sole Gaming company that raised capital this week. They...
WEEKLY RECAP Weekly funding rose by 37% from $132 million to $180 million, while the total deal count decreased slightly from 23 deals to 21. Funding was relatively evenly dispersed across categories, with four out of five categories raising more than $30 million, except Web3, which saw $8 million in funding. DeFi was the leading category in total funding and deal count, raising $56 million across nine deals. Series A...
WEEKLY RECAP Q4 has represented the least funded quarter in each of the past two years, and two weeks into this year, the trend is on pace to remain intact. The first week of the fourth quarter was one of the least funded weeks all year, with just $11 million raised across eight deals. Although not overly impressive, funding rebounded this week to $120 million across 21 deals. Concentration in...
