Funding on Ice in Crypto Winter

Web3 Funding slows to a Crawl, Singapore VC Secures New Capital, and Investors Flock to Africa’s Video Game startups.

Author

Adam from VC Brags
January 17, 2023

Welcome Shareholders, 

First off, a huge thanks to all of the new shareholders joining us. In the daily edition of the Brags Newsletter, we’ll cover the latest in news and rumors in the venture world, from startup and venture funding to industry coverage and much, much more. So sit back, grab a snack and enjoy. 

Venture Today 👏

  • Crypto Winter and the FTX Blowup seem to have swayed away potential investors in the Web3 space, with Funding plummeting a record 74% in the fourth quarter of 2022. 

Funding in Crypto and Web3 startups fell from $9.3 billion in Q4 2021 to just $2.4 billion, making it the lowest quarterly total since the $1 billion raised in Q4 2020. Deal flow also considerably slowed across the industry, with only 327 deals being funded compared to 677 in the first quarter of 2022.

Big ticket deals (those that exceeded $100 million) also fell, with only Amber Group, Matter Labs, Uniswap, and Mineplex raising money compared to 20 such deals in Q4 2021. While Funding crawled to a halt in the fourth quarter, Web3 saw another impressive year of Venture Interest, with $21.5 billion being invested in 2022 compared to $29.2 billion in 2021. 

Who's Raising?

  • Singapore Early Stage Venture Capital-focused Blockchain Founders Fund closed $75 million from investors for its BFF II fund. 

BFF II will invest in seed and pre-seed in blockchain, Web3, Metaverse, and Crypto startups and commit $5 million in future funding rounds.

Notable investors who participated in the Raise include NEO Global Capital (NGC), Appworks, Sebastien Borget, COO of The Sandbox, GSR, LD Capital, and Metavest Capital. Blockchain’s previous portfolio investments include the blockchain game Splinterlands, the crypto social tools platform LunarCrush, and the Blockchain AI platform ASM. 

Startup of the Day

  • Game publisher Carry1st has raised $27 million in a new round to develop games targeting the African market. 

Investors in the new round include Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), TTV Capital, Alumni Ventures, Lateral Capital, Kepple Ventures, and Konvoy. The new round comes just a year after the game publisher raised $20 million from marquee investors. Carry1st has largely seen its success from publishing third-party games like SpongeBob Crusty Cook Off for consoles & PC, Call of Duty Mobile, and League of Legends for PC.

The company wants to build on top of its success to develop, license, and publish new games as well as expand its monetization -as-a-service solution called ‘Pay1st’ (Carry1st has already partnered with Riot Games - the makers of league of legends - to pilot local payments for its games in Africa).  

Memes and Other Things

Don’t get it twisted this is actually how all VCs are