Messari’s report shows increased funding volume but fewer deals in Q4 2023

In a recent report by Messari, the Web3 industry experienced a remarkable upswing in funding during the fourth quarter of 2023, reaching a staggering $3.83 billion.

This surge, marking an 81% increase from the previous quarter (Q3), is attributed to sustained growth in early trading and a notable uptick in Bitcoin miner transactions.

On the other side, the total number of deals struck QoQ went down during the same time frame. Details revealed that October, November, and December saw 145, 129, and 123 deals valued at $750 million, $2.16 billion, and $910 million respectively.

Messari is a data analytics and research company that provides market intelligence products to help professionals navigate the crypto/Web3 industry. It was founded in 2018 by Ryan Selkis and seeks to promote transparency in the cryptocurrency space by creating an open-source data library for crypto assets. 

Furthermore, Messari noted that the quarter’s standout deals include Blockaid securing $33 million in Series A financing and Ritual raising $25 million in Series A funding. 

These substantial transactions propelled the average deal size from $5.8 million in Q3 to an impressive $8 million in Q4 which shows a robust investor confidence in the sector’s potential. 

Blockaid is a Web3 security company that provides tools to prevent malicious transactions, protecting users from scams, phishing, and hacks. 

It claims to have scanned 450 million transactions, thwarted 1.2 million malicious transactions, and safeguarded $500 million in user funds. 

Ritual AI is a decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) network that aims to become the Schelling point of AI in the Web3 space. The company offers an open, sovereign execution layer for AI that can be integrated into any app or protocol on any chain, enabling users to fine-tune, monetize, and perform inference on models with cryptographic schemes.

Other notable rounds were carried out by Drift protocol, $23.5 million; Blast, $20 million; and Privy, $18 million.

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