Decoupling VC From The Market
This week, venture capital apparently didn’t read any of the crypto news, nearly doubling last week’s fundraising total when the market dropped 25% over the previous seven days. There was a solid distribution across sectors in a week that saw $1.1 billion raised across 43 projects, though Infrastructure took the top spot at $390 million. CeFi raised $249 million, with Web3 projects following closely behind at $227 million. Rounding out the bottom came Metaverse/Gaming at $104 million and NFTs at $76 million.
There were also four new funds that together raised $1.5 billion, the largest fund being an ecosystem fund for Flow to support NFT projects and development on the platform. In capital markets, Alborz, a sustainable bitcoin mining partnership between Cipher and WindHQ, was able to secure a $47 million secured credit facility from BlockFi to start accumulating ASICs.
Deal of The Week
KuCoin ($KCS) is the fifth-largest crypto exchange by trading volume. The company became a decacorn (worth ≥ $10 billion) after its $150 million Pre-Series B at a valuation of $10 billion. The funding round was led by Jump Crypto, with other participants including Circle Ventures, IDG Capital, and Matrix Partners.
Why Is This a Big Deal?
KuCoin has seen exponential growth since its Series A back i...