Venture capital deal flow into cryptocurrency startups is going in the same direction as the cryptocurrency market cap: down.
The total crypto market cap has fallen almost 59% from about $2.25 trillion at the beginning of the year to $923 billion at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap data.
“Deal activity tracks very closely to the crypto market cap,” Robert Le, fintech analyst at PitchBook, said to TechCrunch. “It’s a little bit of a lag, but if you overlay the crypto market cap to the amount of venture capital going into the space by quarter or month, it tracks closely.”
In the past two quarters, global crypto VC deal activity fell from all-time highs of $10.87 billion in the first quarter to $7.63 billion in the second quarter and $4.44 billion in the third quarter, according to PitchBook data as of October 3. The last time the total deal size was this low was in the first quarter of 2021, when the total was $3.46 billion.
“The deal count went down a lot,” Le said. “What you’re seeing is that the crypto companies that are getting investments are getting a bigger share compared to last year.”
Basically, investors are putting more money into smaller bets and companies or projects they feel “higher conviction” for, Le said.
Crypto VC deals continue drop as activity follows bearish market prices by Jacquelyn Melinek originally published on TechCrunch
