Crypto VC funding increased 53 percent in March, with optimism winning the biggest share

Venture capital funding into crypto jumped 52.5% month-on-month in March, with crypto projects receiving $1.16 billion, mostly in infrastructure and decentralized finance projects.

According to RootData statistics, 180 publicly-traded investments were made per second in the past month – the highest monthly figure since April 2022.

A fifth of deals saw fundraising between $1 million and $3 million, while more than 15% raised between $5 million and $10 million. Most of the funded projects are based in the United States, but they still account for less than 10 percent of the total deal count.

Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain Optimism achieved its biggest increase of the month by selling $89 million worth of tokens in a private deal. Cryptography startup Zama is the 2nd in a $73 million Series A round.

The monthly deal numbers are up 25 percent from February and more than 70 percent from last year's period, while the total amount raised is up 28 percent from March 2023.

VC firms have recently hinted at their crypto-specific interests for the coming year. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) on April 1st allocated $30 million to a fund focused on Web 3 games.

Last week, a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen and Galaxy Digital VC firm 1kx raised $150 million in a $75 million fund targeting crypto-based consumer applications, and Hack VC raised $150 million for early-stage crypto and artificial intelligence startups in February.

Infrastructure projects were the most well-funded firms in March, accounting for nearly $283 million — about a quarter of the total $1.16 billion in VC funding.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) projects saw funding of $228.1 million, nearly 20% of the total, while decentralized finance (CeFi) projects – according to exchanges – saw the third highest funding with $85.5 million.

No funding has been raised in the DAO category.

Last month's funding was the first time since November that VC funds broke over $1 billion for the month.

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