Data: In Q1 2024, cryptocurrency financing significantly increased, with startups raising $2.4 billion in 518 transactions

ChainCatcher news, according to crowdfundinsider, in the first quarter of 2024, crypto financing saw a significant increase, with startups raising $2.4 billion across 518 deals. Compared to the previous quarter, investment capital grew by 40.3%, and deal volume increased by 44.7%. The number and speed of investments are expected to continue to rise throughout the year.

Infrastructure startups led the financing this quarter, with Ethereum staking platform EigenLayer (Series B funding of $100 million) and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) development platform Zama (Series A funding of $73 million) raising the largest rounds. The biggest deal of the quarter went to Together AI, a developer of an open-source, decentralized cloud platform for large foundational models. This startup raised $106 million in early funding, led by Salesforce Ventures, with a pre-money valuation of $1.1 billion.

The median pre-money valuations for pre-seed and seed stages were $21.8 million, $72 million for early stage, and $51.1 million for late stage, representing year-over-year increases of 85.5%, 148.3%, and 7.6%, respectively. Deal sizes also reflected the rise in valuations, with the median for pre-seed and seed stages at $2.7 million, $5 million for early stage, and $5.8 million for late stage, representing increases of 24.9%, 25.0%, and a decrease of 9.7% compared to the full year of 2023, respectively.