September crypto VC roundup: Funding slightly increased from previous month

This article is part of a monthly series from The Block that takes a closer look at where the most recent venture capital investments have been flowing.

Crypto funding moderately increased in September from the previous month, both in terms of the total number of deals and the dollar figure.

There were more than 205 deals during September, attracting around $2.3 billion. That's higher than August’s numbers — which saw around 145 deals amassing $1.8 billion — but still overall crypto funding has fallen for a second consecutive quarter, the first time since 2018.

The two most popular investment categories in September were NFT/blockchain gaming and infrastructure — same as the last month — drawing a total of more than $1.4 billion in funding. The DeFi and trading verticals continue to draw lesser investments.

Below is a roundup of all the VC fund-raises worth more than $25 million announced in September, organized by category.

Trading, custody and payments 

There were seven raises larger than $25 million by firms specifically focused on crypto trading, custody and payment services.

Strike, a crypto payments provider using Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, raised $80 million in a funding round led by Ten31. Other investors included Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Wyoming. Strike also allows users to buy and sell bitcoin on its platform.

Crypto market maker Portofino Technologies, founded by former Citadel Securities executives Leonard Lancia and Alex Casimo, raised $50 million. Investors include Valar Ventures, Global Founders Capital and Coatue.  

Pan-African crypto exchange Yellow Card Financial raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by Polychain Capital. Other investors included Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Fabric Ventures and DG Daiwa Ventures.  

Crypto derivatives exchange Deribit raised around $40 million from existing investors at a $400 million valuation. The company’s existing shareholders include QCP Capital, Akuna Capital and Dan Tapiero's 10T Holdings.

MPCH Labs raised $40 million in a Series A round led by Liberty City Ventures. Other investors include QCP Capital, LedgerPrime, Animoca Brands and Human Capital. MPCH Labs is building multi-party computation (MPC) technology, which is often used in self-custody solutions where multiple devices can validate a transaction removing the potential for a single point of failure.  

Crypto trading software maker 3Commas raised $37 million in a Series B funding round. Investors included Target Global, Alameda Research, Jump Crypto and Dmitry Tokarev, founder and CEO of crypto custodian Copper. 

Crypto investment products provider 21.co raised $25 million in funding at a $2 billion valuation. Marshall Wace led the funding, with Collab+Currency, Quiet Ventures, ETFS Capital and Valor Equity Partners participating. 21.co is the parent company of 21Shares and Amun. 

NFTs, and gaming and the metaverse

September saw six raises bigger than $25 million for firms focused on NFTs, blockchain gaming and the metaverse. 

Sports-focused metaverse startup LootMogul said it secured a $200 million investment commitment from Global Emerging Markets (GEM) group's Global Yield LLC SCS (GGY) vehicle. As The Block has reported previously, GEM usually only commits capital instead of providing checks, and the group's investment commitments are often based on milestones a startup reaches. In the case of LootMogul, GEM will provide "with a share subscription facility of up to $200 million for a 36-month term following an equity exchange listing, which will allow LootMogul to draw down funds by issuing equity shares to GEM."

Metaverse developer Animoca Brands raised $110 million in a strategic funding round by issuing convertible notes. Investors included Temasek, Boyu Capital, GGV Capital, Mirae Asset Management and True Global Ventures.

Blockchain gaming project Jot Art said it raised $55 million in the form of grants and funding. KaJ Labs provided grants worth $35 million and the rest of the funds were raised from Psalms Capital and ACP. Jot Art is building its platform on the Lithosphere network. Lithosphere's core developer is KaJ Labs — which seemingly explains why it provided the grants.

NFT collection creator Doodles raised $54 million in funding at a $704 million valuation. Reddit co-founder's VC firm Seven Seven Six led the funding. Other investors included Acrew Capital, FTX Ventures and 10T Holdings. Doodles, launched last year by former CryptoKitties team lead Jordan Castro, illustrator Scott Martin and NFT consultant Evan Keast, offers pastel-colored profile pictures as NFTs and is one of the most popular NFT collections in the market. 

Metaverse infrastructure startup Hadean raised $30 million in a Series A funding round led by Molten Ventures. Other investors included Epic Games (the developer of online video game Fornite), 2050 Capital, Alumni Ventures, Aster Capital, Entrepreneur First and InQTel. 

Move-to-earn startup Fit&Beat said it secured $25 million in investment commitment from GEM Digital. Fit&Beat has its own native token FTB, which is currently trading at around $0.0777, according to CoinMarketCap. 

Don’t forget web3 

There were only two raises that surpassed $25 million for web3 projects in September.

Web3 energy startup Tesseract Energy, founded by former Revolut chief revenue officer Alan Chang and a former early employee of Revolut, Charles Orr, raised $78 million in an equity plus token round at a $145 million valuation. Balderton and Lakestar led the round and additional backers included Accel, Low Carbon, Ribbit Capital and former Formula One racing driver Nico Rosberg. Tesseract Energy plans to tokenize power purchase agreements and offer "commission-free energy" that is up to 10 times cheaper. 

Diamond tokenization startup Diamond Standard raised $30 million in a round led by Left Lane Capital and Horizon Kinetics. Other investors included Gaingels and Republic. By tokenizing diamonds, Diamond Standard aims to create a new asset class for both retail and institutional investors. 

Tools of the trade

The remaining seven fundraises of more than $25 million from September were from the infrastructure category. They include firms developing blockchain networks and data analytics tools.

Web3 infrastructure firm Mysten Labs, which is building the proof-of-stake Layer 1 blockchain Sui, raised $300 million in a Series B round at over $2 billion valuation. The round was led by FTX Ventures. Other high-profile investors included a16z, Binance Labs, Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sino Global. 

Blockchain scaling project Fuel Labs raised $80 million in a funding round led by Blockchain Capital and Stratos Technologies. Other investors included Alameda Research, CoinFund, Bain Capital Crypto, Maven 11 Capital and Spartan. Now, with more than 60 engineers working on the project, Fuel Labs is building a “modular execution layer” — comparable with Layer 2 projects like Polygon.

Sardine, a startup that provides fraud detection, compliance and instant settlement tools to fintech and web3 customers, raised $51.5 million in a Series B funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Other investors included Google Ventures, ING Ventures, Uniswap Labs Ventures, ConsenSys, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit. Sardine was founded in 2020 by Coinbase and Revolut alum Soups Ranjan. 

Layer 1 blockchain developer GRNGrid said it secured an investment commitment of $50 million from GEM Group's GEM Digital entity. As stated above, GEM usually only commits capital based on certain milestone achievements, rather than providing actual checks.

Layer 1 blockchain developer ParallelChain Lab said it secured a $50 million investment commitment from GEM Digital. ParallelChain plans to launch its blockchain network in the fourth quarter of this year along with its native token XPLL. 

Crypto data and analytics firm Messari raised $35 million in a Series B funding round led by Brevan Howard Digital. Other investors include FTX Ventures, Morgan Creek Digital, Samsung Next and Steven Cohen's Point72 Ventures. 

Community Labs, a crypto startup founded by 19-year-old Tate Berenbaum, raised $30 million in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Other investors included Arweave, Bain Capital Crypto, Blockchain Capital and Distributed Global. Community Labs is modeled after the Ethereum software development company ConsenSys, but for the Arweave ecosystem. Arweave is a protocol that allows you to store data permanently with a "single upfront fee."

New crypto VC funds

Venture capital firms have to raise funds, too. In September, there were more than 20 VC fund launches and the largest came from Bessemer Venture Partners, Northzone and Madrona.

Bessemer Venture Partners launched a new fund worth $3.85 billion to back early-stage startups across industries, including fintech. Earlier this year, the firm launched a crypto-focused fund worth $250 million. 

London-based venture capital firm Northzone launched a €1 billion fund with an eye on investing in crypto and fintech startups. Its current crypto portfolio companies include crypto infrastructure startup Magic Labs, web3 privacy firm Sunscreen and DeFi protocol Gro. 

Venture capital firm Madrona announced the biggest fundraise in its 27-year history and for a Seattle-based VC.  The firm raised $690 million across two funds — $430 million Madrona Fund 9 and $260 million Acceleration Fund 3. The funds will continue to invest in technology startups at pre-seed through Series C stages. Madrona also invests in crypto startups and its current bets include TaxBit and Stack.

Two Sigma Ventures, the venture unit of the $60 billion-plus financial sciences company Two Sigma, raised $400 million for its two funds: Two Sigma Ventures IV to invest in early-stage startups and Two Sigma Ventures Opportunity Fund II to invest in growth-stage companies. Two Sigma invests in crypto, among other sectors, and its current crypto bets include Pyth, Rift Finance and UMA. 

Telstra Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of Australia's top telecom company Telstra, announced its second fund worth AU$500 million around $315 million) to invest across sectors, including crypto. The fund has already invested in FTX. 

Germany-based investment firm Digital Transformation Capital Partners (DTCP) reportedly raised a new fund worth $300 million to invest across sectors, including web3. The fund is targeting about 25 equity investments in the range of $20 million to $25 million for businesses in the early growth or growth stage as part of Series B-D or late-stage funding rounds. 

Swisscom Ventures, a tech investments-focused venture capital firm, reportedly raised a new $300 million fund. The firm invests across tech areas, such as healthcare, cleantech, robotics, healthcare and web3. 

Crypto-focused venture capital firm Spice VC announced its second fund with a $250 million target raise. The firm expects to have the fund's first close mid-fourth quarter. The target value is five times that of its first fund, which closed in 2018.

Theta Capital Management announced its third blockchain fund. The fund has a target size of $250 million and $70 million in capital has already been committed. Theta Capital said it raised $500 million for crypto-native venture capital in 2021.

Chinese crypto billionaire Jihan Wu, the founder of Bitmain, set up a $250 million fund to buy distressed assets from Bitcoin miners. Wu’s Bitdeer Technologies Holding Co. plans to invest $50 million of its own capital and then aims to raise another $200 million from external investors. 

A new investment firm called Further Ventures debuted with a $200 million fund in Abu Dhabi. The firm's anchor investor is Abu Dhabi's over-$100-billion sovereign wealth fund ADQ. Further Ventures has three focus areas for investments: Fintech, digital assets and supply chain. For digital assets, it plans to invest in startups focused on crypto custody, trading platforms, wallets,  payments and other infrastructure for institutions. 

Berlin-based VC firm Point Nine raised a new fund worth over $180 million. The firm also invests in crypto startups; its current bets in the sector include Chainalysis, Kaiko and Bitbond. 

 Crypto-focused investment firm North Island Ventures closed its second fund with $125 million in commitments. The fund aims to back 30 to 40 early-stage startups, with initial investments ranging from $250,000 to $3 million.

Crypto-focused investment firm SevenX Ventures raised its third fund worth $100 million. The firm plans to continue backing blockchain ecosystems, especially with a focus on bridging "Asian developers to western infrastructures."

Crypto-focused venture capital firm Bloccelerate unveiled its second fund worth $100 million. The firm has already raised $20 million from 26 investors — that amount already surpasses its $12 million inaugural fund in late 2020. 

A new crypto-focused venture capital firm called Caerus Ventures debuted with backing from the NEAR Foundation. NEAR will anchor the fund, which has an initial closing of $50 million and a target of $100 million for seed series A investments. 

Singapore-based investment holding firm Golden Equator Group partnered with Snoop Dogg’s son Cordell Broadus to launch a web3-focused venture fund. Named Welcome To The Block, the fund aims to raise $40 million-$50 million to invest in early-stage web3 startups across CeFi, DeFi and web3 infrastructure areas.

Crypto-focused venture capital firm MetaWeb Ventures raised $30 million for its first fund from backers including Sequoia Capital, Dragonfly Capital and the Near Foundation. The firm aims to invest across web3 verticals such as DeFi, gaming and DAOs.

Web3-focused venture capital firm WWVentures raised a $15 million fund to invest in early-stage startups. The firm's investment thesis revolves around social capital, meaning it plans to invest in startups that understand the essence of web3, the role communities play within it, and the token economies that incentivize their users.

Alchemy, a crypto unicorn that provides a web3 development platform, planned to raise $12 million for a new venture capital fund. Alchemy first announced the launch of its venture capital unit last December with backing from a16z, Lightspeed, Coatue and Altimeter. 

Crypto influencer Cooper Turley officially entered the VC space by launching a $10 million fund. The fund, dubbed Coop Records, will invest in early-stage artists and startup founders, bringing web3 and music together.  

Nomura, one of Japan's biggest investment banks, announced the launch of its crypto-focused venture capital unit. Dubbed Laser Venture Capital, the unit will invest in companies in the digital ecosystem, with a focus on DeFi, CeFi,  web3 and blockchain infrastructure. 

Canadian entrepreneur and Shark Tank judge Kevin O’Leary revealed a  plan to launch a web3-focused investment fund called Cipher. O’Leary recently became a citizen of the United Arab Emirates and said the fund’s lead investor is from the UAE.

© 2026 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.