Crypto fundraising rose significantly between March 2025 and March 2026, increasing by nearly 50% year over year, according to data from Messari. The growth occurred even as the number of deals declined by 46%, reflecting a shift among venture firms toward concentrating capital in larger and later-stage funding rounds.

Messari CEO Eric Turner shared an overview of the data on Sunday, noting that the average deal size climbed to approximately $34 million over the past 12 months, a 272% increase compared with the previous year. During the same period, the number of active investors dropped by 34.5% to about 3,225.

“Capital concentration is heavily skewed by late-stage and strategic mega-rounds,” Messari said. The report highlighted that in February alone, three major fundraising events accounted for 44% of the $795 million raised during the month.

Among those transactions were Tether’s $200 million investment in online marketplace Whop, a $75 million Series B round for the sports-focused peer-to-peer prediction market Novig led by Pantera Capital, and a $70 million Series B round for ARQ, a Latin American fintech application centered on stablecoins, led by Sequoia Capital.

Venture activity remains concentrated among major rounds

Despite the strong year-over-year increase, fundraising activity has been uneven in the short term. The $795 million raised in February represented a 65.3% decline compared with the previous 30-day period.

Turner also noted that few large venture firms have recently completed new fund launches. Aside from Dragonfly Capital, most major venture capital firms have not announced fresh fundraising rounds, prompting Turner to remark that “the industry needs some fresh capital.” In terms of investor activity, Messari data shows that Coinbase Ventures, QUBIC Labs and Somnia have been among the most active cryptocurrency investors during the past three months.

Early-stage activity persists despite broader slowdown

Although the crypto investment environment has strengthened compared with recent years, overall fundraising levels remain well below the peaks recorded during the previous market cycle. Monthly funding regularly exceeded $4 billion in both November 2021 and May 2022, but since then the $4 billion threshold has been surpassed only three times.

Some venture capital firms have also begun allocating more attention to sectors such as artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, which have attracted significant investment interest.

While late-stage rounds now dominate total capital raised, Messari noted that early-stage fundraising continues at a steady pace but remains widely distributed across many participants. One example cited was Interstate’s $1.5 million funding round completed Thursday, which included more than 15 contributors ranging from venture firms such as Bloccelerate VC to individual angel investors including Sergey Gorbunov.

Sources:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-funding-up-50-percent-despite-fewer-deals

https://x.com/eric_turner/status/2030756248883278225

https://messari.io/fundraising