• Crypto VCs made $2.6B worth of deals in the first quarter of 2023
• Valuation trends are mixed, with early-stage rounds down 16.7%
• Layer-2 scaling solutions, custody solution providers and demand for self-custody continue to show positive outlooks
Crypto VC Deals Worth $2.6B in Q1 2023
The report from PitchBook showed that crypto companies raised $2.6 billion across 353 investment rounds during the first quarter of 2023. This is an 11% decrease in quarter-on-quarter deal value and a 12.2% decrease in total deals compared to 2022, making it the lowest amount of capital invested since 2020.
Valuation Trends Mixed
Valuations trends have been mixed with seed rounds up 33.3%, late stage rounds up 209.2%, but early stage rounds down 16.7%. Despite this decline, layer-2 scaling solutions, custody solution providers, and demand for self-custody have continued to display positive outlooks for the space despite market conditions.
Blockstream Raises $125M
Blockstream was able to raise $125 million to finance a Bitcoin (BTC) mining infrastructure while Scroll — a firm building a zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine scaling solution — raised $50 million in a late stage VC round. These investments demonstrate that there is still potential within the crypto space despite current market conditions..
Ledger & Taurus Receive Investments
Ledger also received sizable investments as demand for self custodians increasing as they were able to raise 109 million while Taurus raised 65 million in their Series B on February 14th
Conclusion
PitchBook’s Crypto Report has shown that despite current bearish market conditions venture capital firms are still investing within the crypto space as layer 2 scaling solutions, custody solution providers and self custodians remain active and optimistic about future prospects within this sector