A new report on VC fundraising in the crypto space provides interesting conclusions. The sector is undergoing deep consolidation, with fewer projects receiving substantially more capital.
Sectors like DeFi, AI, and blockchains are getting a lot of interest, whereas RWAs, DePIN, NFTs, and GameFi are falling by the wayside. Aligning with major players’ preferences may be the only way to receive fresh inflows.
SponsoredCrypto VC Fundraising Analyzed
A few months ago, VC fundraising in the crypto space was in full swing, with institutional investment powering $10 billion in inflows in Q2 alone. Since then, however, this sector has apparently cooled somewhat, as token launches began taking precedent over traditional VC routes.
A new report aims to fully quantify the data and identify useful trends. Throughout September 2025, crypto VC fundraising rounds fell dramatically on several points. Compared to the previous month, the total number of rounds fell by 25.3%, and this magnified to 37.4% next to September 2024.
In other words, the number of fundraising rounds isn’t just falling; the rate of decline is increasing at breakneck speed.
However, this data is slightly misleading. Although the number of distinct VC fundraising events in crypto dropped like a rock, there’s vastly more capital involved. Looking at the raw value of total fundraising, last month had a 739.7% increase year-over-year.
SponsoredA Consolidating Market
In total, this represents around $5.1 billion in total VC fundraising capital for the crypto sector. As prominent firms aim for major IPOs, these aggressive rounds are ballooning in size and diminishing in total number.
Last month, multiple single fundraising rounds surpassed the total capital raised in September 2024:
In light of this trend, it’s critically important that we discover which sectors are gaining the most attention.
CeFi and DeFi were naturally the largest areas, nearly representing half of total investment capital between them. AI development and L1/L2 blockchains tied for third place behind them, with tools and wallets lagging narrowly behind.
Although the RWA market has traded well on stock tokenization hype, data suggests that VC fundraising is ignoring this crypto subsector. A recent report shows that these assets are significantly underperforming, and last month, they only achieved a 6.5% market share when bundled with DePIN.
In other words, large institutional investors like Goldman Sachs, Pantera Capital, and Galaxy Digital are dominating this VC fundraising ecosystem, and they can be particular about their crypto interests.
This consolidated environment may produce significant challenges to smaller projects, but it also has real opportunities.
