From The Top: Our April Fundraising Roundup

“From the Top” is an ongoing series from the Portfolio Fundraising Team, providing research and insights into the Web3/crypto fundraising market

For those of you that are busy, here’s a snapshot of a snapshot:

• There were 50 Pre-Seed to Series A fundraising deals, which represents an increase from last month’s 38 deals
  • In terms of capital volume, the total amount increased from $304M in March to $323M in April, amounting to a 6.5% increase since last month
• In terms of month-on-month changes, Infrastructure deals saw the largest % increase. In fact, compared to only representing just over 10% in March, in April Infrastructure deals made up over 25% of all rounds
  • Infrastructure rounds also made up the majority of the largest rounds in April
    • In April, one later stage project stood out amongst the rest: LayerZero ️
      • With a Series B raise of $120M (a16z, Sequoia Capital, Circle Ventures, Maple VC). LayerZero is aiming to continue its mission towards interoperability by facilitating interaction between separate blockchains and ecosystems
  • DeFi and Web3 saw a slight decreases in funding round presence whilst NFTs remained fairly constant
  • CeFi saw a slight increase and also comprised 2 of the largest rounds in April, namely Unchained Capital and Zodia Custody
• When looking at the fund landscape, data shows that in April 3 funds raised a cumulative amount of $430M, which represents a massive increase from March as well as compared to 2023 overall
  • Bitget raised $100M for its Web3 Fund, with a geographic focus on the Asian market.
  • Re7 Capital raised $100M for their RxR Opportunities Fund in collaboration with Republic, with a thesis of investing in smaller cap liquid crypto tokens
  • The biggest raise came from Theory Ventures, a venture capital based in California with a focus on DeFi, Web3 and machine learning, who raised a total of $230M in their debut fund
  • The most active early-stage investors in April were DWF Labs, HashKey Capital and The Spartan Group
• There were 18 noteworthy ICOs this month, one-third of them being gaming related projects, including some of the largest ICOs of the month
  • The Delysium ICO raised a total of $14M, the highest amount this month
    • Delysium is a real open-world, AI-powered, MMO game which aims to be a true AAA game in the space
  • The second largest ICO of April, Yesports, totalled just over $6M
    • Yesports is leading the web3 gaming industry by delivering valuable digital products & experiences for fans & gamers
  • Finally, in line with the current ChatGPT-fuelled AI frenzy, there were also two new AI ICOs, one of which was ChainGPT, an AI model that assists individuals and businesses with everything related to crypto and blockchain technology