Weekly Recap

Crypto funding rose 59% week over week from $85 million to $135 million, while deal count held steady at 21 total deals. DeFi was the most funded category from both a fundraising and deal count perspective, raising $70 million across eight deals, including a $14 million strategic round completed by Ethena Labs and led by Dragonfly Capital. Ethena is striving to create a yield-bearing synthetic dollar by leveraging Ethereum staking and delta-neutral hedging. The funding round brought Ethena’s valuation to $300 million. Infrastructure was the second most funded category, total...