Infrastructure maintains its status as the dominant sector when it comes to receiving money from venture capital funds.
Venture capital (VC) funds invested $935 million in crypto startups in April, according to data aggregator DefiLlama. The amount is 8% smaller than the total invested in March, which had the largest monthly fundraising since October 2022.
Investments in crypto startups focused on building blockchain infrastructure surpassed $730 million, representing 78% of all the amount raised last month. This is even more than the $655 million seen in March, the month with the largest infrastructure allocations in the first quarter.
Layer-1 blockchain Monad registered the largest fundraising round in the period, with $225 million received from players such as Paradigm, Electric Capital, and Coinbase Ventures.
Berachain is another layer-1 blockchain that received a significant amount of funding in April, totaling $100 million invested by Framework Ventures, Samsung Next, Arrington Capital, and many others.
Moreover, a $90 million private sale of OP tokens from Ethereum layer-2 blockchain Optimism to a16z on April 30 adds to the infrastructure investments.
The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector also received more funding from VCs in April, with $157 million captured last month surpassing March by $50 million. Ellipsis Labs received $20 million in a round led by Paradigm to build an on-chain liquidity primitive on Solana’s blockchain.
Another sector in crypto that received more attention from VCs in April is the Web3-focused applications sector, jumping from gathering $3 million in March to $19 million in April. The startup Legitimate led the investments with $4.3 million received last month to build its product aimed at bridging the physical and digital worlds.
Web3 gaming was the only sector in the blockchain industry that registered a smaller capital influx from VCs into its projects, sliding from $83 million to $24.7 million in April. Crypto gaming studio Avalon received $10 million from VCs, almost half of all the funding directed at this sector last month.