Crypto VC investment falls 20% in Q3 as new funds hit 2019 low

Crypto venture investment fell 20% in the third quarter to $4.519 billion across 296 deals, and only three new crypto-focused venture funds closed, Galaxy Research said. Deal count dropped 24% from the second quarter, a decline Galaxy said mainly reflected a pullback in later-stage financing.

The three funds raised about $1.3 billion, the fewest new funds in any quarter since the third quarter of 2019. Galaxy said year-to-date fundraising annualizes to roughly $8.2 billion, slightly below the $8.75 billion raised in 2025, with an average fund size of about $386 million and a median of $71 million.

For allocators weighing crypto venture managers, the field narrowed after only three new funds closed while later-stage companies took about 76% of dollars invested, Galaxy said. That favors established crypto venture franchises and crossover investors writing larger later-stage checks.

Trading, exchange, investing and lending businesses drew roughly $2.37 billion, about half the quarter's total and a majority of capital for four straight quarters, while pre-seed and seed rounds made up 44.9% of deals. U.S.-headquartered companies received 74.9% of dollars invested. Galaxy said the difficult fundraising environment reflects macro headwinds and competition for investor allocations from spot ETFs, digital asset treasury companies and artificial intelligence. The CLARITY Act has been pushed back, sovereign rates are rising and large IPOs from frontier AI labs are drawing investor attention. For the year to date, venture investors have put $14.537 billion into crypto across 1,040 deals.