Key Takeaways

• According to Cryptorank data as of January 5, 2025, the Web3 industry reached a yearly high with 159 funding deals in December 2024, totaling $3.08 billion
• Compared to November, both the number of deals and total funding amount increased, up 13.57% and 75%, respectively
• The financing methods also show a trend of diversification. In addition to token financing and traditional equity financing, debt financing and over-the-counter (OTC) transactions are also highly favored.
• CeFi and social sectors saw increased funding share and became December’s investment hotspots while the DeFi sector cooled down. CeFi led with $892 million in total funding
• Funding sizes are mainly concentrated in the $3-10 million and $1-3 million ranges, accounting for 38.6% and 29.5% of total funding, respectively
• Strategic round funding dominated with 72.4% of total funding, significantly higher than other rounds
• Animoca Brands was December’s most active investor, participating in 8 funding rounds, with half of its investments focused on blockchain infrastructure

Funding Overview

According to data from Cryptorank on January 5, 2025, the Web3 industry completed 159 funding rounds in December 2024, totaling $3.08 billion.[1]

• Record-breaking Monthly Funding Scale: Compared to November, both the number of funding rounds and total funding in December increased, with a month-over-month growth of 13.57% and 75%, respectively. Year-over-year, December 2024 saw growth of 34.74% and 204.95% compared to December 2023. Notably, December’s total funding set a new annual high for 2024, reaching $3.08 billion, significantly surpassing previous months’ levels.
• Growth Driven by Several Large-Scale Fundings: While December lacked mega-deals like Stripe’s October acquisition or MARA’s November convertible bond deal, six projects raised over $100 million each, pushing the month’s funding to a record high.

In December 2024, total funding reached its annual peak, continuing the growth momentum from October and November, driven by several key factors.

First, Rumble and Tether formed a $775 million strategic investment partnership, signaling a significant merger between traditional media and blockchain technology.

Second, Bitcoin mining companies expressed strong confidence in future development. CleanSpark and Riot Platforms secured substantial funding, providing ample capital to expand computing power and enhance mining efficiency.

Furthermore, financing methods showed increasing diversity. In addition to traditional equity financing, debt and over-the-counter (OTC) transactions gained traction. Avalanche secured $250 million via OTC transactions, Public raised $135 million through equity and debt financing, and Allo obtained $100 million in debt financing. [2]

Based on Cryptorank data, December 2024 saw increased funding in CeFi and social sectors, which emerged as key investment hotspots, while DeFi sector funding cooled.

• CeFi Takes the Lead: The CeFi (Centralized Finance) track topped the list with a total funding amount of $892 million. Projects like Public, ALLORWA, and BVNK secured significant investments, reflecting investors’ optimism about the application prospects of traditional finance in the Web3 world and highlighting an accelerated integration trend between traditional financial institutions and cryptocurrencies.
• Social Track Follows Closely: The social track ranked second with a total funding amount of $820 million. Tether’s $775 million investment in the video-sharing platform Rumble and Lens Protocol’s successful $31 million funding round became market highlights.
• Blockchain Services and Public Blockchain Track Show Stable Performance: The blockchain services track ranked third with a total funding amount of $764 million. Successful fundraisings by projects like Avalanche (public blockchain) and Klickl (blockchain services) demonstrate that investors remain highly focused on the development of blockchain foundational services and public blockchain infrastructure.
• DeFi Track Sees Decline in Popularity: The DeFi (Decentralized Finance) track raised $169 million, indicating a cooling in its previous popularity. This may be related to overall market volatility and regulatory uncertainties in the DeFi sector.
• Lower Funding for GameFi and NFT Tracks: The GameFi and NFT tracks saw relatively low funding, raising $8.25 million and $4 million, respectively. This lower interest could be attributed to macroeconomic conditions and prevailing market sentiment.

Based on data from 88 disclosed funding projects in December, the funding amounts were primarily concentrated in the $3–10M and $1–3M ranges, accounting for 38.6% and 29.5% of the total funding, respectively, with little change compared to the previous month. Notably, the proportion of large-scale funding exceeding $50M significantly increased from 2.9% in the previous month to 6.8% in December. This shift is likely attributed to a surge in major companies’ large-scale fundraisings and strategic investments during the month.

From the perspective of funding stages, among the 83 projects with disclosed funding rounds, Strategic rounds accounted for the largest proportion of funding, reaching 72.4%, significantly higher than other stages. This is likely because many projects in December received substantial strategic investments during their later development phases. Strategic investors injected significant capital, often aimed at supporting large-scale expansion, acquisitions, or entry into new markets.

According to Cryptorank data, as of January 5, 2025, Animoca Brands continued to hold its position as the most active investment institution in December 2024, participating in eight funding rounds. Its investments spanned a wide range of sectors, including blockchain infrastructure, public chains, DeFi, GameFi, and social platforms, with blockchain infrastructure accounting for half of its total investments. Notably, Animoca Brands remained consistently active in investments throughout nearly every month of 2024.

Key Funded Projects in December

Usual

Overview: Usual is a decentralized stablecoin issuer designed to provide a composable and accessible DeFi product by combining real-world assets (RWA) with decentralized finance (DeFi). The USD0 stablecoin issued by Usual is backed 1:1 by high-credit real-world assets such as ultra-short-term U.S. Treasury bonds and highly liquid, low-risk financial instruments. Ownership and governance are redistributed through the $USUAL token, which entitles holders to actual platform revenue, future earnings, and ownership of the underlying infrastructure.[3]

On December 23, Usual announced the completion of a $10 million Series A funding round, led by Binance Labs and Kraken Ventures, with participation from Galaxy, OKX Ventures, and others. According to official data, Usual has completed three funding rounds to date, raising a total of $18.5 million.[4]

Investors: Binance Labs, Kraken Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Galaxy Venture, OKX Ventures, IOSG Venture, Hypersphere Venture, Wintermute, Amber Group, GSR Venture, Symbolic Capital, Krypital Group, and others.

Highlights:

1. Unlike traditional stablecoins, Usual leverages multi-chain infrastructure and integrates RWA assets from institutions such as BlackRock, Ondo, and Mountain Protocol as collateral to issue the USD0 stablecoin. USD0 is backed by short-term RWA assets and high-credit-rated bonds, offering enhanced stability and security.
2. USD0 offers a flexible minting mechanism: users can directly deposit eligible real-world assets (RWA) to receive USD0, or deposit mainstream stablecoins like USDC or USDT to obtain an equivalent amount of USD0, with third parties providing corresponding RWA as collateral. This dual minting mechanism not only lowers the barrier to entry for users but also enhances the overall liquidity of the stablecoin, providing a convenient access point for both retail and institutional investors.
3. Usual was founded by Pierre Person, a former French Member of Parliament with deep expertise in policymaking and blockchain technology. This background ensures strong compliance and supports the project’s global development. Additionally, the involvement of top-tier investment institutions provides Usual with ample capital and strategic resources.
4. Usual’s total value locked (TVL) has grown rapidly, reaching $1.8 billion in just a few months. The market cap of its USD0 stablecoin has hit $1.813 billion, surpassing FDUSD to rank fifth in the industry. This strong market performance demonstrates Usual’s growth potential and competitive position. The platform further strengthens user engagement by distributing 100% of protocol-generated revenue to governance token holders and implementing an innovative PVP mechanism, creating more ways for users to participate.

Avalanche

Overview: Avalanche is a high-performance blockchain platform developed by Ava Labs, designed to provide developers with a flexible and scalable platform for building various decentralized applications. Its core platform comprises three blockchains: the Exchange Chain (X-Chain) for creating and trading assets, the Contract Chain (C-Chain) for executing smart contracts, and the Platform Chain (P-Chain) for coordinating network validators and managing subnets.[5]

On December 12, the Avalanche Foundation announced it had raised $250 million for its blockchain platform through a private token sale, with participation from Galaxy Digital, Dragonfly, ParaFi Capital, and over 40 other companies.[6]

Investors: Galaxy Digital, Dragonfly, ParaFi Capital, SkyBridge, Morgan Creek Digital, Hypersphere Ventures, Republic Capital, and others.

Highlights:

1. On December 17, Avalanche launched its major Avalanche 9000 upgrade on the mainnet. The upgrade reduced the base fee for C-Chain transactions by 96% (from 25 nAVAX to 1 nAVAX), lowered subnet deployment costs, and introduced over $40 million in developer rewards. These changes make the platform more appealing to developers and enterprises building blockchain applications.
2. According to the Avalanche Foundation, the Avalanche ecosystem is flourishing, with over 500 teams building on the Layer 1 blockchain across multiple sectors, including real-world assets, gaming, and payments. The recent $250 million fundraising has provided strong momentum for accelerating ecosystem development.
3. Avalanche’s network TVL has shown steady growth, reaching a two-year high of $1.65 billion on December 15. Currently maintaining $1.43 billion, this TVL growth demonstrates Avalanche’s strong position in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector and its potential to attract additional users and capital.

BVNK

Overview: BVNK is a platform that provides banking and payment services tailored for crypto-native businesses. Companies using BVNK can accept payments in both fiat and cryptocurrencies, hold hundreds of different currencies and crypto assets, and enable global remittances. BVNK offers a comprehensive suite of payment solutions, allowing businesses to accept cryptocurrency payments while providing users with fiat-to-crypto conversion services. This solution can be seamlessly integrated into existing enterprise systems.[7]

On December 17, BVNK announced the successful completion of a $50 million Series B equity funding round led by Haun Ventures. Previously, in May 2022, BVNK raised $40 million in a Series A round at a valuation of $340 million, led by Tiger Global.[8]

Investors: Haun Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Tiger Global, and others.

Highlights:

1. BVNK operates in multiple countries worldwide, focusing on providing complete B2B and B2B2C payment solutions for businesses in the UK and Europe. Through BVNK, companies can efficiently handle cross-border settlements, meet consumer demands for stablecoin payments, and provide remittance services to regions with unstable currencies.
2. BVNK holds a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license in Spain and has established strong partnerships with major European banks such as Barclays, BBVA, Deutsche Bank, and Santander. With the implementation of MiCA’s CASP regulations, BVNK’s commitment to regulatory compliance ensures its position at the forefront of industry regulation.
3. BVNK processes transactions worth up to $10 billion annually, with an average transaction size ranging from $100,000 to $250,000, showcasing its expertise in handling large-scale commercial payments. With a total of $90 million in funding to date, BVNK has secured a solid financial foundation for its continued growth.

Lens Protocol

Overview: Lens Protocol is a decentralized and composable Web3 social graph protocol designed to give creators full control over their social connections and truly allow users to own their social data. Lens enables developers to build various social applications, fostering an open ecosystem. Users can freely carry their social data across any application built on the Lens protocol.[9]

On December 18, Lens Protocol announced the completion of a $31 million strategic funding round led by Faction VC. The funds will primarily be used to accelerate development and expand the Lens ecosystem.[10]

Investors: Faction VC, DFG, Avail, Alchemy Platform, Circle, Consensys, Fabric Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Superscrypt, Re7Capital, Wintermute Ventures, Caliber Ventures, G-20, Blockchain Coinvestors, Borderless Capital, Bodhi Ventures, and others.

Highlights:

1. The upcoming Lens v3 release will go live on the mainnet in Q1 2025. This version features a modular design called “Social Legos,” which simplifies the protocol architecture. This modularity allows developers to mix and match functional components (such as accounts, relationship graphs, content streams, etc.) to build customized decentralized social applications quickly. The upgrade lowers the development barrier, boosts the Lens ecosystem’s growth, and offers users a more diverse social experience.
2. Lens Protocol empowers users with complete ownership of their social data through NFTs. Users can freely manage, trade, and monetize their social data assets, enabling true decentralization of social data. According to official Lens data, the protocol currently boasts 3 million users and has processed on-chain assets worth $25 billion, showcasing its strong potential for community growth.
3. Lens Protocol was created by the team behind the decentralized lending protocol AAVE. AAVE’s robust technical expertise and extensive industry resources have significantly supported Lens’s development and accelerated its progress. To date, Lens has raised a total of $46 million, providing a solid financial foundation to drive its rapid expansion in the Web3 social domain.

Fraction AI

Overview: Fraction AI is a decentralized AI data platform focused on providing high-quality and diverse labeled data to meet the training needs of AI models. The platform is comprised of three primary participants: stakers who stake ETH or liquid staking tokens (like stETH) to earn rewards, developers who create AI agents to participate in labeling tasks, and reviewers who participate in evaluation tasks using the platform’s native token, FRAC, with scoring supported by large language models (LLMs).[11]

On December 19, Fraction AI announced the completion of a $6 million Pre-Seed funding round led by Spartan Group and Symbolic Capital.[12]

Investors: Spartan Group, Symbolic Capital, Borderless Capital, Anagram, Foresight Ventures, Karatage, etc.

Highlights:

1. Fraction AI’s agent competition mechanism allows anyone to create agents with simple prompts to compete and generate valuable data. These AI agents can produce high-quality data for training AI models. Outstanding agents receive significant rewards, while stakers benefit from stable returns from underperforming agents.
2. Fraction AI has built a virtuous ecosystem where high-performing agents generate better data, enhancing AI model performance. This, in turn, incentivizes users to create superior agents. The platform’s reward mechanisms encourage users to continuously optimize their agents, fostering the advancement of AI technology.
3. Fraction AI is designed to be highly accessible and requires no programming skills. Users can create powerful agents simply by writing prompts. Additionally, staking has a very low entry threshold, as any amount of ETH can be staked. The platform automates all technical complexities for users.
4. Fraction AI plans to launch its mainnet by late Q1 or early Q2 of 2025, along with the release of its native token, FRAC. The project has completed closed testing, with over 60,000 users participating. Built on Ethereum, the platform also plans to expand to NEAR and multiple Ethereum Layer 2 networks in the future.

Summary

In December 2024, the Web3 industry maintained strong momentum, completing 159 funding rounds with a total amount of $3.08 billion, reflecting month-over-month increases of 13.57% and 75%, respectively, setting a new annual high. Fundraising approaches were diverse, with debt financing and over-the-counter (OTC) transactions gaining popularity alongside traditional equity financing. Notably, funding proportions for CeFi and social tracks increased significantly, becoming investment hotspots, while the DeFi track experienced declining enthusiasm. Meanwhile, the rapid growth of leading projects such as Usual, Avalanche, BVNK, Lens Protocol, and Fraction AI demonstrates the vibrancy and vast potential of the Web3 industry.


References:

1. Cryptorank ,https://cryptorank.io/funding-analytics
2. Cryptorank,https://cryptorank.io/funding-rounds
3. Usual ,https://usual.money/
4. X,https://x.com/usualmoney/status/1871213374547370328
5. Avalanche,https://www.avax.network/
6. Forbes ,https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/12/12/despite-being-flush-avalanche-raises-250-million-from-galaxy-and-others/
7. BVNK ,https://www.bvnk.com/
8. Fortune Crypto ,https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/12/17/exclusive-stablecoin-bvnk-750-million-series-b-bridge-stripe-haun/
9. Lens Protocol ,https://www.lens.xyz/
10. Lens Protocol ,https://www.lens.xyz/news/lens-closes-31-million-strategic-raise
11. Fraction AI ,https://fractionai.xyz/
12. The Block,https://www.theblock.co/post/331488/crypto-ai-startup-fraction-funding

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