According to Messari’s Q3 report, crypto saw a 36% decrease in funding and in deals compared with the previous quarter.
Early stage and strategic investments
The report goes on to explain that most fundraising has been concentrated on early-stage rounds, such as Pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A funding, which have seen an increase of 11% since Q4 of 2020. This is in contrast to later stage deals which have seen a fall from 8% in Q4 2020 to only 1.4% in Q3 this year.
Strategic investments are said by the report to account for a good part of the Q3 funding. As the bear market has progressed, strategic investments have gone up significantly, from a 0.2% share in Q4 of 2020 to 22% in Q3 of 2023.
Chain infrastructure, DeFi, and gaming
When looking at specific sectors of the crypto industry, those of DeFi, chain infrastructure, and gaming, have drawn the most funding. Messari’s report claimed that there was a notable move away from user-facing applications towards infrastructure projects.
For these top sectors for funding, chain infrastructure accounted for the largest share of the funding pie with 18%, while DeFi had the biggest number of deals, at 67. And the gaming sector gained an impressive $250 million in investments in Q3 of 2023.
Binance Labs major investor
Messari highlighted that Binance Labs was the most active investor, playing its part in no less than 23 deals, which was said to be more than double the activity of Robot Ventures, the next biggest investor. Binance Labs has been investing throughout this year, mainly in DeFi and gaming, as well as in the zero-knowledge and privacy niche.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
