cryptobriefing.com
Crypto startups captured $777 million in investments from venture capital (VC) funds in May, according to data aggregator DefiLlama. This is a 17% slide from the total amount netted in April, and the second consecutive month of VC capital slowing down.
Projects focused on building blockchain infrastructure received $630 million last month, representing 81% of the total amount raised in the period. However, this is $100 million less than the total capital flows directed to this sector in May.
Farcaster registered the largest infrastructure-related funding round in the period, with $150 million in investments coming from names such as Variant Fund, a16z Crypto, and Paradigm.
The Bitcoin ($BTC) decentralized finance ecosystem also received attention from VCs, as the $BTC staking protocol Babylon secured $70 million from relevant players like HashKey Capital, Polychain Capital, and Galaxy.
Despite showing a three-fold growth between March and April, the money directed to decentralized finance (DeFi) startups shrunk to $50 million in May. The largest funding round in DeFi was conducted by Fortunafi, a real-world asset tokenization protocol that received $9.5 million.
Notably, the non-fungible token ($NFT) sector saw a fresh flow of VC money in May, as utility $NFT platform Galaxis got $10 million from Chainlink and four other investors.
Web3-focused applications also witnessed growing interest from venture capital funds last month, netting $48 million in funding, a 153% monthly rise. Kiosk, a Farcaster client merging social and blockchain registered the most significant funding round in this sector by capturing $10 million from VCs.
Blockchain gaming wraps up the list with nearly $27 million invested, a slight leap from the $24.7 million captured in April. Param Labs received $7 million from VCs such as Animoca Brands, Delphi Digital, and Mechanism Capital.