Crypto Fundraising Analysis: Where the Money Is Flowing in 2024
May 5, 2025•general
The crypto space continues to evolve rapidly, with billions in funding flowing into various sectors. We analyzed 964 fundraising rounds to understand where the smart money is going—and the results are illuminating.
The Big Picture
Out of nearly 1,000 fundraising rounds analyzed:
- Total Fundraising Rounds: 964
- Total Amount Raised: $16,131.3 Million USD
- Rounds with Valid Category: 841
- Rounds with Valid Amount: 902
- Rounds Missing Category Data: 123
- Rounds Missing Amount Data: 62
- Number of Categories Identified: 41
Complete Category Breakdown
| Category | Number of Rounds | Total Amount Raised (M USD) | Average Raise (M USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| L1 | 47 | $5,686.5 | $121.0 |
| DeFi | 114 | $2,467.0 | $21.6 |
| CeFi | 37 | $2,292.8 | $61.9 |
| Infrastructure | 95 | $1,527.2 | $16.1 |
| Gaming | 57 | $1,151.5 | $20.2 |
| L2 | 11 | $739.9 | $67.3 |
| Centralized Exchange | 26 | $515.8 | $19.8 |
| Analytics | 14 | $285.9 | $20.4 |
| NFT | 32 | $223.4 | $7.0 |
| Trading | 20 | $190.4 | $9.5 |
| Metaverse | 10 | $182.1 | $18.2 |
| Mining | 13 | $160.9 | $12.4 |
| Cybersecurity | 10 | $118.6 | $11.9 |
| Web3 | 19 | $114.3 | $6.0 |
| Liquid Staking Protocol | 7 | $104.1 | $14.9 |
| AI | 13 | $53.9 | $4.1 |
| Social Platform | 9 | $43.3 | $4.8 |
| Payments | 7 | $42.1 | $6.0 |
| Zero Knowledge Industry | 5 | $38.8 | $7.8 |
| Stablecoin | 6 | $26.8 | $4.5 |
| DEX | 9 | $19.8 | $2.2 |
| Banking | 4 | $18.8 | $4.7 |
| MEV | 5 | $18.0 | $3.6 |
| Smart contract security | 5 | $16.5 | $3.3 |
| RWA | 6 | $15.7 | $2.6 |
| Digital Identity | 6 | $14.6 | $2.4 |
| Storage | 4 | $12.3 | $3.1 |
| Healthcare | 4 | $10.1 | $2.5 |
| Meme | 8 | $7.2 | $0.9 |
| Wallet | 3 | $6.1 | $2.0 |
| DAO infrastructure | 4 | $5.8 | $1.5 |
| Taxes | 4 | $4.5 | $1.1 |
| CeFi Yield | 2 | $3.5 | $1.8 |
| Supply Chain | 3 | $3.2 | $1.1 |
| IoT | 1 | $3.0 | $3.0 |
| Insurance | 2 | $3.0 | $1.5 |
| Hardware | 2 | $1.8 | $0.9 |
| Crypto Intelligence | 1 | $1.5 | $1.5 |
| Oracle | 1 | $1.2 | $1.2 |
| Travel | 1 | $0.5 | $0.5 |
| Voting | 1 | $0.0 | $0.0 |
| Real Estate | 1 | $0.0 | $0.0 |
| Uncategorized | 123 | $572.1 | $4.7 |
| Overall (Categorized) | 841 | $15,559.2 | $18.5 |
| Overall (Incl. Uncat.) | 964 | $16,131.3 | $16.7 |
Key Insights by Data Point
Most Active Categories (By Number of Rounds)
- DeFi - 114 rounds
- Infrastructure - 95 rounds
- Gaming - 57 rounds
- L1 - 47 rounds
- CeFi - 37 rounds
Highest Average Raises
- L1 - $121.0M
- L2 - $67.3M
- CeFi - $61.9M
- DeFi - $21.6M
- Analytics - $20.4M
Complete Data Methodology
- Data Processing: Analyzed all 964 records from raises.json
- Category Handling: Used primary category field, with categoryGroup as fallback
- Amount Calculation: Amounts in millions USD, excluded invalid entries
- Missing Data: 62 rounds had missing amounts, 123 lacked proper categorization
Categories by Stage (Estimated by Average Raise)
Large-Scale Projects (>$50M avg):
- L1 ($121.0M)
- L2 ($67.3M)
- CeFi ($61.9M)
Mid-Scale Projects ($10-50M avg):
- DeFi ($21.6M), Gaming ($20.2M), Analytics ($20.4M), Centralized Exchange ($19.8M)
- Metaverse ($18.2M), Infrastructure ($16.1M), Liquid Staking ($14.9M), Mining ($12.4M)
- Cybersecurity ($11.9M)
Early-Stage Projects (less than $10M avg):
- Trading ($9.5M), Zero Knowledge ($7.8M), NFT ($7.0M)
- Web3 ($6.0M), Payments ($6.0M), Social Platform ($4.8M)
- Banking ($4.7M), Stablecoin ($4.5M), AI ($4.1M)
- MEV ($3.6M), Smart contract security ($3.3M), Storage ($3.1M)
- IoT ($3.0M), RWA ($2.6M), Healthcare ($2.5M)
- Digital Identity ($2.4M), DEX ($2.2M), Wallet ($2.0M)
- CeFi Yield ($1.8M), DAO infrastructure ($1.5M), Insurance ($1.5M)
- Crypto Intelligence ($1.5M), Oracle ($1.2M), Taxes ($1.1M)
- Supply Chain ($1.1M), Hardware ($0.9M), Meme ($0.9M)
- Travel ($0.5M), Voting ($0.0M), Real Estate ($0.0M)
Quality of Data
- Coverage: 87.2% of rounds have valid categories (841/964)
- Financial Data: 93.6% of rounds include funding amounts (902/964)
- Dataset Completeness: 78% show both category and amount
Conclusion
This comprehensive analysis reveals crypto's funding landscape is dominated by infrastructure build-out while maintaining strong interest across diverse sectors. The uncategorized segment represents significant opportunity for emerging use cases, and the distribution across 41 categories demonstrates the broad innovation happening across the ecosystem.