Crypto Research

VENTURE CAPITAL DEALS Espresso Systems is a new layer 1 blockchain protocol that uses Proof-of-Stake consensus with zero-knowledge rollups in order to maintain user privacy while also improving transaction speed and costs. The project raised $32 million in a seed round led by Greylock Partners and Electric Capital, with Sequoia Capital, Blockchain Capital, and Slow Ventures also participating in the round. Espresso’s differentiator is its smart contract application that allows...

Venture capital investors took a breather heading into March after investing around $4 billion in the previous three weeks. CeFi projects continue to get a substantial portion of investments, raising $123 million this week. A DeFi project received $70 million in funding, and NFT/Metaverse investments totaled $52 million. Infrastructure was an unusual laggard in the venture space, raising $35 million. Most of this week’s capital flowed into two new venture...

The biggest news in venture capital this week was the $1 billion private token sale with Terra, which we wrote about in more detail in our Crypto Weekly report. Other than the Terra private sale, Centralized Finance projects took home the bacon, raising $475 million across just three projects. Infrastructure investments raised $103 million mostly in early-stage, low price tag funding rounds. Three gaming / NFT projects received $13 million....

Infrastructure remained the hottest sector in crypto this week, with Helium’s $200 million raise as the stand-out. NFT/metaverse projects also remain of interest to investors broadly. The sub-category of DAO tooling is gaining more traction with RabbitHole’s $18 million raise. Like last week, DeFi was relatively inactive, with only a few deals closed focusing on derivatives and cross-chain liquidity. Active investors this week include Multicoin Capital, Tiger Global, Alameda Research, Polychain...

Venture capital went all-in on infrastructure projects this week, more than tripling investments into the crypto vertical at $942 million. The runner-up was NFT/metaverse projects, which raised $134.5 million over 7 projects that were mostly very early-stage funding rounds. CeFi and DeFi were relatively inactive, raising $40 million and $11 million, respectively. A mining infrastructure project raised $385 million in a mix of equity and debt, and three venture capital...

The trend of massive investment into centralized finance ( CeFi ) and infrastructure projects continued over the past week. CeFi projects raised $430 million, and infrastructure raised $312 million, together making up 80% of this week’s $930 million of investments from venture capital. $167.5 million went into NFTs, and DeFi and gaming brought up the rear with $11.25 million and $7 million, respectively. Two new venture capital funds raised a...

Over $1.8 billion was raised through venture capital this week, with $928 million going towards 6 infrastructure projects to help build ecosystem functionality. Two new venture funds raised $435 million for future investments into a variety of crypto verticals. Centralized Finance (CeFi) brought in $433 million, NFT projects received $12.2 million, and a DeFi project raised $6 million. The bigger move in the NFT capital markets world came by way...

Venture capital firms took a shotgun approach to investing this week, raising just over $1 billion in total for investments across the crypto space, focusing heavily on NFTs, Infrastructure, and Centralized Finance (CeFi) projects. NFT projects raised $240 million, infrastructure saw $239 million, CeFi raked in $324 million, and DeFi and Metaverse raised $33 million and $45 million, respectively. Acquisition activity was also high, with OpenSea and BitMEX eyeing other...

This week’s venture capital was heavily weighted towards infrastructure projects, with some dabbling into NFTs, Gaming, DAOs, and DeFi. Crypto infrastructure projects raised over $1.3 billion, with interoperability and usability as the biggest attractions in the space. Token sales were effective fundraising instruments this week, raising $85 million for 3 protocols. Signs point to a massive influx of capital in future Funding Fridays, as 3 new funds raised $7.9 billion...

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...

VENTURE CAPITAL DEALS Africa Blockchain Lab is a blockchain technology business and creator of African crypto application VIBRA. The company has raised $6 million in a Series Pre-A investment to help support the launch of its VIBRA wallet. Investors include Dragonfly Capital, Hashkey Capital, Fenbushi, Cadenza Capital, Lateral Frontiers, CRE Venture Capital, among others. Africa has received plenty of investments from top global venture funds in 2021, projects like Ejara...