In the first quarter of 2024, venture investments in the crypto industry reached $2 billion, breaking a two-year downward trend, according to Crypto Koryo.
? Long-term Trend ?
Both total investments and number of investments have increased compared to last quarter.
Compared to last quarter, there was a 38% increase in amount invested and 49% increase in the number of projects invested. pic.twitter.com/QhIcsOB0qw
— Crypto Koryo (@CryptoKoryo) April 4, 2024
Analysts recorded a 38% increase in investments compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. The number of deals rose by 49%, reaching 250.
Although the investment volume is seven times lower than the all-time high, the beginning of an upward trend is reminiscent of late 2020 before the market’s parabolic growth, experts highlighted.
They noted several features of the reporting period:
- for the first time, Series A investments surpassed pre-seed rounds;
- the number of deals in the former category nearly doubled;
- unlike previous quarters dominated by banks and venture capitalists not linked to cryptocurrency, industry-focused firms led by a16z took the lead.
The top five largest investments of the quarter included HashKey ($100 million), EigenLayer ($100 million), Zama ($73 million), Berachain ($69 million), and Figure ($60 million).
In terms of networks, the Ethereum ecosystem maintained its lead in the number of deals. However, Solana rapidly caught up, driven by a boom in meme tokens on the network. Experts described presales of assets as a de facto return of ICOs.
Crypto Koryo noted the emergence of new names like Sui, Scroll, Manta, Berachain, ImmutableX, and Blast in the top 20 platforms attractive to venture investors by the end of the quarter.
At the end of 2023, investments in blockchain startups totaled $10.7 billion, a 68% decrease from the previous year.