Wu Says VC Monthly Report: Financing Amount Decreased by 13% in September, OTC Trading Booms

According to RootData statistics, in September, there were a total of 97 investment projects publicly disclosed by Crypto VCs, marking a 13% decrease month-on-month (112 projects in August 2024) and a 4% increase year-on-year (93 projects in September 2023). Among these, CeFi accounted for approximately 6%, DeFi for about 27%, NFT/GameFi for around 10%, L1/L2 for about 8%, RWA/DePIN for about 11%, Tool/Wallet for about 9%, and AI for approximately 6%. The total financing amount in September was $610 million, down 23% month-on-month (compared to $790 million in August 2024) and down 12% year-on-year (from $690 million in September 2023). The top 10 financing rounds by amount were as follows: Modular blockchain Celestia completed $100 million in financing, led by Bain Capital Crypto. Infinex raised $65.30 million through Patron NFT sales, with participants including Wintermute, Framework, Near, and others. Huma Finance announced that it completed $38 million in financing, which included $10 million in equity investment and $28 million in real-world assets (RWA) investment. Bitget and Foresight Ventures jointly announced a strategic investment of $30 million in TON, which will be achieved through OTC purchases of TON. Gaming platform Balance.fun completed its latest financing of $30 million, led by a16z and Galaxy Interactive, and is the predecessor of the North American gaming companion platform Epal. They plan to conduct the Pioneer Badge NFT Mint in early October and issue the governance token EPT in the future. The Solana ecosystem DeFi platform Drift completed a $25 million Series B financing round, led by Multicoin Capital, with participation from Blockchain Capital, Primitive Ventures, Folius Ventures, and others. Mert Mumtaz, CEO of the Solana ecosystem development platform Helius, announced on Twitter that Helius completed $21.75 million in financing, with participation from Haun Ventures, Founders Fund, Foundation Capital, 6th Man Ventures, Chapter One, and Spearhead. Web3 security company Hypernative announced the completion of a $16 million Series A financing round, led by Quantstamp, with participation from Bloccelerate VC, Boldstart Ventures, Borderless Capital, CMT Digital, IBI Tech Fund, Re7 Capital, and others. Hemi completed $15 million in financing, led by Binance. Initia announced the completion of $14 million in Series A financing, with a fully diluted valuation of the company's token reaching $350 million.