An Overview of the Most Active Blockchain Investors in Q1'23

The start of the 2023 blockchain venture capital market has been dismal. As predicted in the latest most active investor summary, Terra’s collapse, the FTX fiasco, the U.S. banking crisis, and the overall jittering economy have sent many venture capitalists looking for their own pockets in a more risk-off environment. A mere $2.7b was allocated across 402 deals in the first quarter of 2023. Even though the Q1’23 investment totals are the lowest since Q4’20, it is still worth examining the current venture capital firms, their activity, and trends among them. Based on The Block Pro Deals Dashboard, most active investors collectively invested in 96 unique crypto/blockchain companies.

Six (Shima Capital, Polygon Studios, Animoca Brands, Big Brain Holdings, Coinbase Ventures, Dragonfly Capital) of the 2022 most active venture capitalists continued their streak in private blockchain investments and made the Q1’23 list. The newly featured firms were a16z (who have always been on the cusp of making the top 10 last year), Hashkey Capital, Circle Ventures, and DWF Labs. DWF Labs took many crypto market followers by surprise this quarter and rose to 2^nd place on the most prominent investors list. Spearheaded by their Managing Partner Andrei Grachev, DWF Labs, an affiliate of Digital Wave Finance, invests in the crypto market mainly through token purchases. In an interview with CoinDesk, Andrei stated that "this bearish market - this turbulent market - is the best time to join the investment space." Data also suggests that as the crypto markets bled over the past year, DWF Labs' investments have steadily grown. Some of their notable investments this quarter include a $40m ($250m val.) Fetch.ai token purchase, a $40m (n/a val.) investment into Tomi, a Web3 company providing "alternative Internet," and a $20m (n/a val. ) Synthetix token purchase.