Hello world, and welcome to Dove Mountain Weekly #1!
Today, we are diving into the correlation between NFTs sales and usage metrics, and the fundraising activity in the industry.
It’s no secret that NFT’s have blown up this year and the data makes that clear.
But, to what extent has the fundraising landscape followed that explosive growth?
With more and more capital flowing in the space; funds, angels, and DAOs have progressively been backing promising projects, with Rarible’s February $1.75M raise from tier-1 VCs (CoinFund, ParaFi Capital, 1kx, and Coinbase Ventures) as a key starting point.
The total amount invested has skyrocketed from less than $5M in February to more than $170M today.
As we have seen with the NFTs sales and usage metrics, March can be considered as the NFTs hype peak. But as later-stage rounds recently demonstrate, investors are well aware that there is still plenty of room to grow, and that the sector should be maturing in the upcoming months. Early 2021’s NFTs boom laid solid foundations, leading to some bigger rounds, announced recently:
GENIES ($65M) — with participation from Dapper Labs, Polychain, Coinbase Ventures, Hashkey, and others.
OpenSea ($23M) — with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Naval Ravikant, Mark Cuban, Alexis Ohanian, Dylan Field, Linda Xie, and others.
Big Time Studios ($21M) — with participation from FBG Capital, Digital Currency Group, OKEx BlockDream Fund, Sound Ventures, Alameda Research, and others.
Bitski ($19M) — with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Kindred Ventures, Galaxy Digital, and many well-known angel investors.
As a consequence of the craze and the influx of capital, the average amount raised by NFTs projects at the Seed stage ($1.88M) is higher than the average seed-stage funding amount raised by traditional ventures ($1.37M) — despite all-time record hit by global venture funding in Q1 2021. Some of the following Seed rounds can account for this performance:
Showtime ($7.6M) — with participation from Paradigm, 3LAU, Meltem Demirors, and others.
Bit.Country ($4M) — with participation from Walsh Wealth Ventures, Animoca Brands, Hypersphere Ventures, Digital Finance Group, Genblock Capital, LongHash, CMS Holdings, and many others.
On the contrary, the average Series A NFTs round ($14.8M) is smaller than what has been registered in the traditional Series A funding space ($17.8M), since early 2021.
With 16 rounds related to the marketplace vertical, it is clear that it has been the most attractive sub-categories — the most common NFTs use cases still being minting, buying, and selling.
Many funds have been very active, with AU21 Capital, X21 Digital, Morningstar Ventures, Moonrock Capital, Lotus Capital, and Blocksync Ventures leading the trend, with more than 5 rounds.
Even if DeFi fundraising rounds are very often crowded with prominent crypto figures, angel investing has become NFTs investment standard practice.
Feel free to have a look at Dove Mountain Data, the richest dataset ever publicly released on crypto fundraising rounds.
We have included last week’s 26 fundraising rounds:
SolPAD ($2.1M) — with participation from AU21 Capital, Avstar Capital, Arcuate Capital, Black Mamba Ventures, Chainstride Capital, DCI Capital, Das Kapital, GD10 Ventures, Genblock Capital, Grizzly Capital, Magnus Capital, Moonwhale Ventures, Trensettle Ventures, and Raven Capital.
Polkally ($700k) — with participation from ExNetwork Capital, Titans Ventures, Bigcoin Capital, Blocksync Ventures, and others.
ZKCHAOS ($1.5M) — with participation from NGC Ventures, Spark Digital Capital, 3Commas, Moonwhale Ventures, Kyros Ventures, Morningstar Ventures, Particle, Ape Capital, Ruby Capital, AU21 Capital, X21 Digital, Stakely
dTrade ($6.4M) — with participation from Three Arrows Capital, DeFiance Capital, Huobi Capital, Polychain Capital, and others.
Project Galaxy — with participation from Multicoin Capital, Divergence Ventures, Hard Yaka, Blockchain.com, IOSG Ventures, Draper Dragon, Fifth Era, Multiplex Ventures, and others.
Alice ($2M) — with participation from Arrington XRP Capital, Do Kwon, Accomplice, Mechanism Capital, and others.
Mercurial Finance — with participation from Alameda Research, DeFiance Capital, imToken Ventures, Signum Capital, SinoGlobal Capital, GBV Capital, OKEx BlockDream Fund, Coin98 Ventures, Gate.io, Huobi Capital, Solana Ecosystem Fund, HyperChain Capital, Edward Moncada, Bobby Ong, TM Lee, Alex Svanevik, Jonathan Chu, and Darren Lau.
Bit.Country ($4M) — with participation from Walsh Wealth Ventures, Animoca Brands, Hypersphere Ventures, Digital Finance Group, Cao Yin, Anti Fund, Kernel Ventures, Shima Capital, Genblock Capital, LongHash, CMS Holdings, Illusionist Group, Altonomy, LD Capital, SevenX Ventures, GFS Ventures, Moonwhale Ventures, Moonrock Capital, PAKA, NGC Ventures, Vendetta Capital, OKEx BlockDream Fund, Sub0 Capital, NxtBlock, SkyVision Capital, Coinblox Capital, Waterdrip capital, Marshland Capital, YBB Foundation, BlokeGlobe, Marshland Capital, Lotus Capital, 18.ventures, Mgnr, and Ratio Ventures.
Cryptomeda ($2.7M) — with participation from AU21 Capital, X21 Digital, Metrix Capital, Spark Digital Capital, Blocksync Ventures, GD10 Ventures, AngelOne, Peech Capital, Lotus Capital, Moonwhale Ventures, Kardia Ventures, LVT Capital, Raptor Group, Bigcoin Capital, Llama Ventures, Magnus Capital, Signal Ventures, In Square Ventures, Blockpact Capital, Minted Labs, Titans Ventures, Megala Ventures, Ventura Capital, Lupa X Capital, CSP DAO, and BlackDragon Capital.
Jenny ($7M) — with participation from Multicoin Capital, Ascensive Assets, Animoca Brands, Metapurse, IOSG Ventures, Moonrock Capital, The Spartan Group, Morningstar Ventures, 3Commas, Spark Digital Capital, Vendetta Capital, Richard Ma, Santiago R. Santos, Neil Strauss, Hillrise Ventures, and 0xb1.
Attrace ($2.5M) — with participation from Coinstone Capital, John Jansen, and Marius Jansen.
Big Time Studios ($21M) — with participation from FBG Capital, Digital Currency Group, OKEx BlockDream Fund, Sound Ventures, Alameda Research, and others.
HashMix ($3M) — with participation from Hashkey Capital, Fenbushi Capital, Continue Capital, GBV Capital, SevenX Ventures, Kenetic, FBG Capital, LongHash, Morningstar Ventures, and A&T Capital.
Spherium Finance ($3.3M) — with participation from Inclusion Capital, Gate.io, AU21 Capital, Rarestone Capital, GBIC (Global Blockchain Innovative Capital), LD Capital, NGC Ventures, OKEx BlockDream Fund, Dutch Crypto Investors, ExNetwork Capital, Petrock Capital, Lysithea Ventures, Titans Ventures, WOLFEDGE CAPITAL, and SL2 Capital.
Duet ($3M) — with participation from OMNILab Foundation, Draper Dragon, Everest Ventures, One Block Capital, Moonwhale Ventures, Dutch Crypto Investors, LD Capital, Zonff Partners, Cabin VC, and ArkStream Capital.
Sky Mavis ($7.5M) — with participation from Libertus Capital, Collab+Currency, CMT Digital, Animoca Brands, MetaCartel Ventures, CoinGecko, Dialectic Capital, Hashed, 500 Startups, DeFi Alliance, Free Company, Fabric Ventures, Mark Cuban, Alexis Ohanian, John Robinson, Gabby Dizon, Julien Bouteloup, Russell Lynde, Peter Park, Inar Zhang, Leo Cheng, Sébastien Borget, and Adam Kornfield.
Moonstarter ($1M) — with participation from AU21 Capital, Autonomy Capital, Moonwhale Ventures, A195 Capital, Lotus Capital, VYSYN Capital, BTX Capital, X21 Digital, Signal Ventures, Magnus Capital, Kardia Ventures, Blocksync Ventures, Genblock Capital, Metrix Capital, and Blockpact Capital.
dotmoovs ($840k) — with participation from Morningstar Ventures, Moonrock Capital, and others.
Klub ($10M) — with participation from Tariq Krim, Ron Stolero, Owen Simonin, Moonwhale Ventures, Guillaume Lestrade, Cyril Paglino, BlackDragon Capital, Amnis Ventures, and Alexandre Yazdi.
ParaSwap ($3M) — with participation from Blockchain Capital, White Star Capital, DeFi Alliance, Andre Cronje, Michael Egorov, and Fredrik Haga.
Hypersign ($1.5M) — with participation from Twin Apex Capital, LD Capital, ExNetwork Capital, Rarestone Capital, Promoteus Labs, Solidity Ventures, AU21 Capital, Drops Ventures, GBIC (Global Blockchain Innovative Capital), Jeco Capital, Moonwhale Ventures, Nabais Capital, NGC Ventures, Digital Currency Group, and Master Ventures.
Wilder World ($3M) — with participation from The Spartan Group, Digital Currency Group, Animoca Brands, Republic Realm, Signum Capital, and others.
NiiFi ($3M) — with participation from DARMA Capital, A195 Capital, AU21 Capital, Blocksync Ventures, Lotus Capital, Matterblock, Moonwhale Ventures, and Three M Capital.
Arche Network — with participation from Particle, 3Commas, Parsiq, Promoteus Labs, Basics Capital, Lotus Capital, Moonwhale Ventures, LD Capital, StaFi, Gate.io, Chain Capital, Candaq, Momentum 6, Dutch Crypto Investors, PAKA, Kryptos, CinchBlock, and Ankr.
Rocket Protocol ($1.2M) — with participation from Pantera Capital, Framework Ventures, SevenX Ventures, Hashkey Capital, SNZ Holding, Puzzle Ventures, Spark Digital Capital, and others.
Sienna Network ($11.2M) — with participation from Lotus Capital, NGC Ventures, Inclusion Capital, FBG Capital, SkyVision Capital, and others.
We have also added the following investors: New Form Capital, Sfermion, Red Beard Ventures, Bollinger, Kerve Capital, Lupa X Capital, SkyVision Capital, and many angels.
See you next week for another issue,
The Dove Mountain Team