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welcome back to Chain reaction.
Looking at the first half of 2023, funding for crypto startups continued to be more scarce. In the second quarter, venture capital entering the industry fell for the fifth consecutive quarter since the first quarter of 2022 to $2.34 billion globally, as investors held onto their checkbooks fearing the risks of a tough regulatory stance. and an uncertain economy.
The $2.34 billion second-quarter tab was raised in 382 deals, according to PitchBook data, but it's a marked decline from the $12.14 billion peak the industry hit in Q1 2022. The biggest increases during Q2 of 2023 were from LayerZero Series B Round of $120 million and Worldcoin Series C Round of $115 million.
โIt's a numbers game,โ said Lydia Chiu, Ava Labs' vice president of business development. In general, investors see lower valuations, so they are writing "smaller checks," she told TechCrunch+.
Regardless, it seems that the old corporate adage "Great companies can always rise" also seems to apply to cryptocurrencies, regardless of how The US regulatory system sits on the sector. Many projects that have "superstar teams and amazing use cases will always be competitive," Chiu said. โThe deals that everyone wants will continue to be wanted.โ
โIt's been a long time since this bear market and psychologically it's not easy,โ said Lasse Clausen, a founding partner of early-stage crypto investment firm 1kx. โWe stay with the entrepreneurs who want to build whether they raise money or not. There aren't many people like that, going against all odds and taking risks."
But in the long run, Clausen believes the sheer determination of those few founders will pay off.
the last pod
for the past week episode, jaquelyn interviewed Jack Lu, Co-Founder and CEO of NFT Magic Eden Marketplace. This is his second time on Chain Reaction, but the market has evolved a lot since the last time he came in August 2022, so we're excited to have it back!
Before co-founding Magic Eden in 2021, Lu worked as a product manager at Google and a consultant at Boston Consulting Group.
Magic Eden originally started as a Solana-based NFT trading platform, but has expanded its support to other blockchain networks such as Polygonethereal and Bitcoin. Today, it has become one of the largest NFT marketplaces with over 8,000 collections, around $3 billion in NFT transactions, and 22 million unique monthly visitors. In June 2022, Magic Eden raised $130 million in a Series B round that granted him unicorn status.
We discuss why Magic Eden expanded its support to other blockchains, adding BRC-20 token support to its secondary platform, and how the company plans to stay competitive in the ever-changing market.
We also talk about:
- NFT Market Volatility
- royalties
- Web3 game expansion
- Tips for the NFT Community
subscribe to Chain reaction in apple Podcast, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the latest episodes, and please leave us a review if you like what you hear!
follow the money
- cryptoquantification raised $6.5 million in a Series A round
- Privacy-focused platform Wave raised $3 million in a seed round
- mind network raised $2.5 million to help protect data, smart contracts and artificial intelligence for web3
- DeFi protocol AlloyX raised $2 million in a pre-seed round
- overcome raised $2.5 million in a seed round to improve privacy verification
This list was compiled using information from Messari, as well as TechCrunch's own reports.
follow me on twitter @Jacqmelinek for breaking crypto news, memes and more.
