Original Author: wesely

Original Author: wesely

Throughout 2022, the field of encryption investment and financing has completed a 180-degree turn from frenzy to cold winter.

In Q1 of 2022, the Crypto investment and financing market has achieved a single-quarter investment and financing record since the birth of Bitcoin with a total financing of over 10 billion US dollars. At the same time, it has also set a record of positive growth for 7 consecutive months. The amount reached more than 26 billion U.S. dollars, achieving an unprecedented golden age of encryption investment.

After the market turned bearish, which other institutions have maintained their enthusiasm for investment? What tracks are they focusing on? According to CB insight statistics and public market data, we sort out the five most active crypto investment institutions and their investment landscape this year. This information may provide a reference for us to judge future trends.

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1、Coinbase Ventures

Source of statistics on quarterly investment and financing data in the encryption field: CB insights

As an American CVC institution (Corporate Venture Capital), Coinbase Ventures relies on the brand advantage of the trading platform to aggressively attack throughout 2022, and it is the one with the most shots among all investment institutions. In the first three quarters, it invested 30 times, 17 times and 23 times respectively. In the fourth quarter, according to public information statistics, there are 11 investment records, reaching a total of 81 times.

In terms of the investment landscape of Coinbase Ventures, it is mainly concentrated in the infrastructure and DeFi fields, especially the former. At present, many new public chains can find the shadow of Coinbase. If you look at the amount of project financing, its participation this year exceeds 100 million US dollars There are only four projects at the level of Yuga Labs, Sui, Aptos and Layer Zero.

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2、Animoca Brands

Coinbase Ventures Q4 investment project information data source: crypto-fundraising

Animoca Brands was established in 2014. It was originally a mobile game research and development company in Hong Kong, and then transformed into a digital asset company. By providing NFT digital asset services to gamers, it will rapidly grow into a blockchain game by taking advantage of the development of NFT in 2021. The top player in the field, and gradually developed into a professional investment company in the chain game field. Compared with other investment institutions, Animoca Brands, in view of its own attributes, most of its investment projects are chain games, NFT or derivative projects related to chain games, but its power map is also expanding to other fields.

Animoca Brands has invested in nearly 70 companies throughout the year, second only to Coinbase Ventures in terms of activity. However, judging from the changes in the number of investments in Q1-Q4, Animoca’s investment front has shrunk significantly. Although the entire investment market is also shrinking, compared with Coinbase, a16z and other institutions, Animoca Brands’ shrinkage is more obvious, which also reflects In addition, the impact of the market environment on the encrypted game field may be even greater.

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3、Andreessen Horowitz（a16z）

Animoca Brands has participated in projects with a financing amount exceeding US$40 million this year

As a top VC institution in the United States, a16z has great influence in the field of Crypto. In the first three quarters, a16z invested 13 times, 22 times and 8 times respectively. MMO game foragers and fighters, zkSync development company Matter Labs, Web3 developer platform buildspace, Uniswap, Web3 e-commerce platform Ray and encrypted data protocol company Golden.

Among these billion-dollar financing projects, in addition to some well-known projects such as Sui, Aptos, Aleo, and zkSync, there are also projects such as Nova Labs, Autograph, and Alecemy that have relatively little discussion in the community, and among these projects, a16z is still Deeply involved in the role of lead investment.

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4、Shima Capital

Shima Capital is a San Francisco-based investment fund. In the four quarters of 2022, the number of projects invested in are 16, 10, 8 and 7 respectively. The two largest investments this year were the chain game GunZ and the L2 network boba respectively, but none of the projects involved in the financing amount exceeded 100 million, and there were not many projects that exceeded 10 million US dollars. It reached nearly 69% of the whole year, so from the perspective of capital volume, Shima Capital cannot be compared with the above-mentioned institutions.

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5、Pantera Capital

Ranking of projects financed by Shima Capital in 2022

The venture capital fund Pantera Capital was founded by Dan Morehad in the United States in 2003. In 2013, it transformed into a cryptocurrency investment institution and launched the first investment fund in the United States focusing on Bitcoin. Since then, it has raised several encryption investment funds. As of writing, throughout 2022, the number of companies invested by Pantera Capital in the four quarters are 16, 13, 8 and 3 respectively, ranking 5th in terms of activity with a total of 40.

It is worth noting that, compared with the above-mentioned institutions, Pantera Capital is relatively more inclined to early-stage projects, and it is rarely seen in some blue-chip financing projects with a level of 100 million yuan. Therefore, for those who dig early-stage projects, pay more attention to this type of investment Institutions are a good choice.

Ranking of projects financed by Pantera Capital in 2022

Summarize

Summarize

In addition to the above five investment institutions, such as Jump Crypto, Multicoin Capital, Dragonfly and even Alameda before death all maintained a certain degree of activity in the bear market stage, and compared with Shima Capital and Pantera above in terms of capital volume and investment amount The capital is all big, but overall, the potential of each institution is obviously not as good as last year. In addition:

The entire encryption investment and financing market is still shrinking, both in terms of financing amount, quantity, and project valuation. It is still under the main channel of the Fed raising interest rates. The investment and financing market in 2023 may be even more bleak. But at the same time, for the capital with strong financial strength, this is also an excellent opportunity to "find leaks", especially the institutions that remain active in the bear market deserve our attention.

At present, the main active crypto investment institutions are mainly American institutions. Among the five most active investment institutions mentioned above, 4 are headquartered in the United States.

Games and infrastructure (public chain/DeFi) are still preferred by many investment institutions. Although the current blockchain game industry is bleak, it is still an excellent track that can attract external users. The most acceptable way to push to large-scale applications, the future is bright, but the process is tortuous.

Different institutions have their own investment preferences and strengths, and we may choose which investment institutions to follow mainly based on our own research.