Crypto financing insights for January: market downturn leads to decline in total funding, Phantom's $150 million Series C stands out
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Crypto financing insights for January: market downturn leads to decline in total funding, Phantom's $150 million Series C stands out
In January 2025, 125 publicly disclosed projects raised a total of $1.5 billion.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Cheeky Rolo
Translation: TechFlow
@cheeky_rolo: “January’s market performance was pretty dismal. You felt it too, right? Nowhere is this more evident than in Web3 startups’ fundraising. The number of fundraising projects has dropped, total funding amounts are declining, and frankly, my morale has taken a hit. Of course, the most eye-catching news has been about the ‘orange president’ and his team. But there's already been plenty of discussion around World Liberty Financial—I don’t have much new to add. Notably, its public token sale accounted for one-fifth of the total funds raised by Web3 and crypto projects in January 2025. The gloomy start to the new year seems to be continuing. I suspect February won’t be any better—but if I could predict the future, I wouldn’t be writing this article.”
Web3 Market Overview: Funding Trends Across Stages Since 2018
Key data for January 2025:
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Total funding amount: 125 publicly disclosed projects raised $1.5 billion.
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Number of deals: A total of 205 deals. Based on this, we can estimate that total funding across all stages reached approximately $2.5 billion.
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Market Highlights This Month
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Phantom closed a $150 million Series C round this month at a $3 billion valuation. This shows that despite high overall market uncertainty, investors remain highly interested in self-custody wallets and consumer-facing crypto applications.
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Phantom’s rapid growth metrics (15 million monthly active users and $20 billion in annual swap volume) reflect rising demand for DeFi tools—especially those centered on security, ease of use, and self-sovereignty.
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Backed by top-tier investors including Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, and A16z Crypto, Phantom is emerging as a strong competitor to MetaMask and Coinbase Wallet. Meanwhile, its developments in social discovery and peer-to-peer payments suggest that wallets may evolve into integrated platforms combining finance and social functionality.
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This funding round also underscores the growing importance of non-custodial solutions. Amid increasing regulatory scrutiny and frequent collapses of centralized exchanges, the industry is accelerating its shift toward decentralized asset ownership and control.
Crypto Venture Fund Launches Since 2022
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Sigma Capital Fund Launch: Sigma Capital, a global early-stage Web3 venture capital manager, announced the launch of its $100 million Sigma Capital Fund I, aiming to accelerate the next wave of Web3 innovation across the Middle East and globally.
Web3 Pre-Seed Funding Trends Since 2018
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9 pre-seed projects (publicly disclosed) raised a total of $14 million.
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Total number of deals was 10, down from 14 in December 2024.
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The average pre-seed funding size this month was $1.5 million.
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Since 2018, the average pre-seed funding size has been $1.6 million.
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Market Highlights This Month
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Rena Labs raised $3.3 million in a pre-seed round this month, indicating rising investor interest in verifiable, trustless AI solutions within the Web3 space—an intersection where blockchain and artificial intelligence technologies converge.
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Rena Labs leverages Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) technology to build on-chain infrastructure supporting secure and autonomous AI agents. This technology ensures privacy, security, and data verifiability without reliance on centralized entities, addressing long-standing critical issues in AI applications.
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This direction strongly aligns with the crypto industry’s principles of decentralization and self-sovereignty, especially as AI plays an increasingly important role in DeFi, on-chain gaming, and private data markets.
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With backing from prominent investors such as Paper Ventures and Lightspeed Faction, Rena Labs is at the forefront of developing robust and trustworthy AI applications, paving the way for AI-driven collaboration in DeFi, on-chain gaming, and decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN).
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Web3 Seed Funding Trends Since 2018
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28 seed-stage projects (publicly disclosed) raised $130 million—a 53% increase from last month.
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Total number of deals was 31, up from 22 in December 2024; estimated total seed funding reached $143 million.
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The average seed funding size this month was $4.6 million.
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The historical average for seed funding since 2018 is $4.6 million.
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Market Highlights This Month
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1Money completed a $20 million seed round this month, marking a significant milestone in stablecoin payments and reflecting growing institutional emphasis on blockchain financial infrastructure.
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As the first Layer 1 network specifically designed for stablecoin transactions, 1Money aims to solve core challenges hindering stablecoin adoption—such as transaction latency, high gas fees, and compliance risks.
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The network employs its patent-pending Byzantine Consistent Broadcast (BCB) mechanism, enabling instant settlement, scalability up to 250,000 TPS, and built-in compliance tools. This positions 1Money as a potential leader in global remittances, e-commerce payments, and peer-to-peer transfers.
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This round was co-led by top-tier investors including F-Prime Capital, Galaxy Ventures, and Tribe Capital, reflecting strong market demand for stablecoin infrastructure that bridges DeFi and real-world payments—marking a crucial step toward mainstream crypto adoption.
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A Round Funding Data Since 2018
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A Round Funding Data:
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8 companies in Series A rounds (publicly disclosed) raised a total of $114 million.
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The average A round size this month was $14 million.
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Since 2018, the average A round size has been $17.3 million.
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Market Highlights This Month
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D3 Global raised $25 million in an A round this month, led by Paradigm and supported by several top Web2 and Web3 investors. This funding marks a major transformation in the domain industry by introducing internet domains as tokenized on-chain assets.
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Through its Doma protocol, D3 Global has pioneered a new economic model known as “DomainFi,” unlocking new functionalities—such as enhanced liquidity, fractional ownership, lending services, and broader financial use cases—for the $340 billion domain market.
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D3 innovates by integrating traditional Domain Name Systems (DNS) with blockchain naming systems, enabling seamless interoperability between Web2 domains (e.g., .com) and Web3-native domains (e.g., .sol and .avax). This allows domains not only to be traded but also programmed and composably utilized.
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Through strategic partnerships with Solana, Avalanche, and OneFootball, D3’s technology has the potential to reshape digital identity and domain ownership, integrating decentralized finance (DeFi), payment solutions, and branding into a unified experience that offers easier access for billions of users.
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This funding round signifies a shift of domains from static assets to dynamic financial instruments, exploring new possibilities for how digital assets are used and valued within crypto and the broader internet.
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