Flashbots bags biggest funding round as crypto investments jump 30% — we ranked who won most in July

Crypto funding jumped by over 30% in July, compared to June.
Last month was still the second worst month for investments in 2023, so far.
Assets in digital asset investment products soared a "staggering" 72%.
We ranked the firms that won the most funding.

The good news: Cryptocurrency and DeFi projects globally raised $454 million in July, a 30% jump from June, according to DefiLlama data.

The bad: Crypto funding tumbled in the first half of 2023 to $3.7 billion, which is less than a quarter of the investment made in the same period in 2022.

Flashbots, an Ethereum-centric research and development startup, secured the biggest raise with a $60 million round led by Paradigm, an investment firm that has also backed Coinbase, dYdX and Euler Finance in the past. Forty-nine other organisations also topped up their coffers last month.

The surge comes as the DeFi community appears to be emerging from the crypto winter of 2022 and early 2023, and the crash of FTX.

“The overall enthusiasm around digital assets is on an upswing,” Joshua de Vos, research lead at digital assets research firm CCData, told DL News.

Monthly crypto and DeFi raises.

Crypto has been on a roll lately. The cross-border payments company Ripple won a round in its long-running litigation with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

And giants BlackRock and Fidelity applied to launch spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which are the most impactful products in the mammoth US retirement investment market.

Other positive signs include a surge in “digital asset investment product” assets under management, rising by a “staggering” 72% in 2023, de Vos said, — “a testament and an example of the sustained institutional interest in digital assets.”

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Meanwhile, Bitcoin has soared 75% this year, and Ethereum is up 53%, according to CoinGecko data.

Altcoins, too, are enjoying a nice period, said Riyad Carey, research analyst at blockchain analysis firm Kaiko.

Maker’s volume jumped from $441 million in May to $2.4 billion in July, according to DefiLlama. Aave similarly jumped from $1.2 billion to $2.8 billion, and Uniswap’s Uni jumped from $1.6 billion to $3.4 billion, in the same period.

“There has definitely been an uptick in trading activity since May, which could be spurring some more activity in the VC space,” Carey said.

NOW READ: Ripple Europe chief Sendi Young on beating the SEC, expansion plans, and upending SWIFT

Venture capitalists and other investors are still cautious about injecting more moolah into industry players while regulators keep firing off lawsuits against crypto giants like Coinbase and Binance.

Then there’s the constant barrage of scandals, exploits, and rug pulls that haunt the industry, as well as influential organisations like the Bank of International Settlements saying that “crypto’s inherent structural flaws make it unsuitable to play a significant role in the monetary system.”

NOW READ: A 20-year-old Argentinian behind the $200m Euler hack says he’s now in a Paris jail

Still, fundraising is, by definition, a lagging indicator. It’s tempting to see the July uptick as, perhaps, the start of another bull run.

In the meantime, here are the 10 biggest funding rounds raised by crypto and DeFi projects announced in July.

Flashbots

Based in: The Cayman Islands.

Business: MEV extraction research.

Funding round: $60 million.

Valuation: $1 billion.

Lead investor: Paradigm

Futureverse

Based in: New Zealand.

Business: AI and metaverse technologies.

Funding round: $54 million.

Lead investor: 10T Holdings.

Risc Zero

Based in: United States.

Business: Zero-knowledge cryptography.

Funding round: $40 million.

Lead investor: Blockchain Capital.

Cosmic Wire

Based in: United States.

Business: Web3 infrastructure provider.

Funding round: $30 million.

Lead investor: Polygon Ventures, and the Solana Foundation.

Based in: Lithuania.

Business: Web3 neobanking.

Funding round: $30 million.

Lead investor: Animoca Brands.

Manta Network

Based in: United States.

Business: Multi-modular blockchain.

Funding round: $25 million.

Lead investor: Polychain, and Qiming Venture Partners.

Valuation: $500 million.

Sound

Based in: United States

Business: Music.

Funding round: $20 million.

Lead investor: a16z Crypto.

Cymbal

Business: Human readable blockchain explorer.

Funding round: $28.5 million.

Echooo

Business: Smart contract wallet.

Funding round: $15 million.

Lead investor: AT&T Capital.

Xterio

Based in: Switzerland.

Business: Web3 gaming.

Funding round: $15 million.

Lead investor: Binance Labs.

Do you have a tip about crypto raises or another story? Share them with me at eric@dlnews.com.