According to ChainCatcher, crypto financing increased significantly in the first quarter of 2024, with startups receiving $2.4 billion in 518 deals. Compared with the previous quarter, investment capital increased by 40.3% and transaction volume increased by 44.7%. The number and pace of investment are expected to continue to increase throughout the year.
Infrastructure startups led the way in funding this quarter, with Ethereum staking platform EigenLayer ($100 million Series B) and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) development platform Zama ($73 million Series A) raising the largest rounds. The largest deal of the quarter went to Together AI, a developer of an open-source, decentralized cloud platform for large-scale infrastructure models. The startup raised $106 million in early-stage funding led by Salesforce Ventures at a pre-money valuation of $1.1 billion.
The median pre-investment valuation for pre-seed and seed rounds was $21.8 million, for early-stage rounds it was $72 million, and for late-stage rounds it was $51.1 million, up 85.5%, 148.3%, and 7.6% year-over-year, respectively. Deal size also reflects the increase in valuations, with the median pre-seed and seed rounds being $2.7 million, for early-stage rounds it was $5 million, and for late-stage rounds it was $5.8 million, up 24.9%, 25.0%, and 9.7% year-over-year, respectively.
