In Q1 2024, crypto fundraising increased significantly as startups secured $2.4 billion across 518 deals, according to an update from PitchBook.
PitcbBook further revealed that this “represents a 40.3% increase in invested capital and a 44.7% jump in deal volume compared with the previous quarter.”
With positive investor sentiment “returning to crypto and barring any major market downturns,” PitchBook expect the volume and pace of investments “to continue increasing throughout the year.”
The PitchBook report also mentioned that Infrastructure startups “led the way in funding during the quarter, with the largest rounds raised by Ethereum restaking platform EigenLayer ($100.0 million Series B) and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) development platform Zama ($73.0 million Series A).”
The PitchBook report added that the largest deal of the quarter “went to Together AI, developer of an open-source, decentralized cloud platform for large foundation models.”
The startup raised a $106.0 million early-stage round “led by Salesforce Ventures at a $1.1 billion pre-money valuation.”
As noted in the PitchBook report, this comes on “the heels of its $102.5 million Series A at a pre-money valuation of $463.5 million just last quarter.”
Together AI is part of “the broader decentralized physical infrastructure network segment,” the report explained.
The report from PitchBook further noted that this segment “continues to be one of the fastest-growing areas in 2024 and will likely receive considerable investor interest.”
Compared with full-year 2023, valuations were up “across all stages in Q1.”
The median pre-money valuation “for the pre-seed/seed stage was $21.8 million; the early stage, $72.0 million; and the late stage, $51.1 million, representing YoY increases of 85.5%, 148.3%, and 7.6%, respectively.”
These numbers indicate that investment rounds “have become highly competitive, especially at the early stages.”
This is compounded by the fact “that early-stage deals are earning higher valuations than late-stage deals, but the sample set is relatively small, so we will see if this trend holds in the coming quarters.”
The PitchBook report pointed out that deal sizes also “reflected the valuation bumps “with median figures registering at $2.7 million for the pre-seed/seed stage, $5.0 million for the early stage, and $5.8 million for the late stage, representing an increase of 24.9%, an increase of 25.0%, and a decrease of 9.7%, respectively, from full-year 2023.”
