Abstraction Layers Becoming Prevalent
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 raised $9 million in a seed round to accelerate the development of their multi-game universe, which is available on mobile and PC. Across deal stages, funding was concentrated in Seed rounds, which represented 43% of both total funding and total deal count, totaling $41 million across nine deals.
Although not included in the numbers below, a notable acquisition was announced this week. Payments giant Stripe acquired Bridge for $1.1 billion. The deal marks a premium compared to the $200 million valuation they earned in their August Series A funding round. Bridge is a payments/stablecoins platform founded by Coinbase veterans. The two companies will work together to advance stablecoins and digital payments into more real-world businesses.