Zooming in, several individual companies raised massive rounds including:
FTX – $900 million
Revolut – $800 million
Fireblocks – $443 million across two rounds in Q3
Sorare – $680 million
Dapper Labs – $250 million
OpenSea – $100 million
These six firms collectively raised just over $3.1 billion in funding, showing the rapidly maturing market of CeFi and continued demand for NFT exposure. Moreover, the subcategorization of these sectors shows some revealing trends.
First, NFT gaming including Dapper and Sorare collectible raised over $1 billion while NFT marketplaces raised ~$250 million. The promise of gaming and crypto’s eventual symbiotic relationship has produced a sizable appetite for fundraising in this sub-category of NFTs.
Further, as CeFi infrastructure enters a more mature life cycle, the top players are raising significant capital in order to scale and dominant their respective categories. Meanwhile, FTX still marches on in its quest to dominate every facet of crypto.
Web3 continues to gain traction, however, Q3 witnessed a focus on Web3 infra and Web3 analytics (which Messari’s $21 million Series A was included in). The focus on analytics and infrastructure shows that Web3 still has a ways to go before reaching broader adoption. Still, notable Web3 companies, like Helium and MobileCoin completed $111 million and $66 million funding rounds, respectively.
The year and a half crypto bull market has brought traditional venture funds into the space. U.S early-stage venture capital fundraising surpassed $15 billion across nearly 1,600 deals. Additionally, existing crypto funds like Multicion, 1Confirmation, Variant, a16z, et al have collectively amassed new funds with deeper pockets.
With the absorbent amount of capital slushing around and ever expanding crypto market, crypto companies are raising money in one of the most opportune times imaginable. The size of the crypto market will continue to grow across all the above categories as well as within new emergent gateogries including DAOs, the Metaverse, social networks, and more. The only question remaining is will Q4 crypto fundraising outpace the previous quarter.
