Gate Research: June 2025 Web3 Fundraising Overview｜Record $5.14 B Month Driven by Institutionalization and Scaling

Summary

• According to data released by Cryptorank Dashboard on July 3, 2025, the Web3 industry recorded 119 fundraising deals in June 2025, with a total amount reaching $5.14 billion.
• Looking at the Top 10 projects, the overall fundraising landscape showed a high concentration of capital, dominance of large single deals, and active follow-on funding through M&A and IPOs. Funds mainly flowed into compliant financial services, listed company expansions, and deep integration with traditional finance, making TradFi-Web3 convergence the central theme.
• Fundraising was heavily concentrated in the CeFi track ($3.3 billion), reflecting a clear trend toward institutionalization. Meanwhile, blockchain services ($887.2 million) and GameFi ($454 million) also attracted significant attention due to ecosystem building and user growth potential, while DeFi and infrastructure sectors remained steady.
• In terms of deal size, mid-sized projects ($3–10 million) were the most active, accounting for 37.8% of all deals. At the same time, projects that raised over $50 million represented 16.7%, becoming an important driver of overall volume.
• By funding stage, strategic rounds were the most active, accounting for 37.8% of deals, highlighting ongoing industry partnerships and resource integration. Meanwhile, mid-to-late stage rounds (Series A/B/C) combined with strategic rounds attracted over 80% of total capital, showing that investors favored mature projects with clear business models and defined growth paths.
• At the investor level, Coinbase Ventures became the most active institution in June, investing in nine projects mainly in the DeFi space. Overall, blockchain services and DeFi made up significant portions of most active institutional portfolios.

Financing Overview

According to data published by Cryptorank on July 3, 2025, the Web3 industry completed 119 fundraising deals in June 2025, totaling $5.14 billion.【1】Due to differences in Cryptorank’s statistical methodology, this figure differs slightly from the sum of individual disclosed deals (approximately $5.34 billion). To ensure consistency, this report uses the original dashboard data.

Compared to May 2025, which had the same number of deals (119) but a lower total of $1.92 billion, June saw a sharp month-over-month increase of 167.7%, setting a new monthly record for 2025 and surpassing the previous March peak of $5.08 billion. This surge was largely driven by large-scale fundraising in compliant financial services, listed company expansions, and deep integration with traditional finance, alongside easing regulatory policies that encouraged traditional financial giants to accelerate Web3 deployment.

For example, Circle topped the list with an $1.1 billion IPO raise, while Lion Group secured $600 million in post-IPO debt financing. These large transactions highlight that the Web3 market is shifting from early-stage, startup-driven dynamics to a more mature, scaled phase led by listed companies and firms with traditional finance backgrounds. More capital is now being raised through conventional tools like bonds and equity offerings, strongly reflecting how institutional money is flowing directly—and in larger volumes—into Web3. This, in turn, is driving the industry toward greater integration and standardization.

In June 2025, Web3 fundraising was characterized by high capital concentration, dominance of large single deals, and active follow-on funding through M&A and IPOs. Funds mainly flowed into compliant financial services, expansions by listed companies, and deeper integration with traditional finance, while also unlocking structural opportunities in emerging sectors such as prediction markets (Kalshi) and institutional chains (Canton Network).【2】

Large-scale deals dominate as the market matures: The top 10 fundraising deals of the month totaled several billion dollars. Circle led with an $1.1 billion IPO, followed by Lion Group’s $600 million post-IPO debt financing, and over $500 million raised by both Metaplanet and Nano Labs. These sizable transactions highlight the Web3 market’s accelerated shift toward maturity and scale, with capital increasingly flowing into large listed companies and firms with traditional financial backgrounds.

Deep integration of traditional finance and Web3 becomes the main theme: Circle, as the issuer of USDC, successfully advanced its IPO, while traditional financial giants like Fiserv continued to expand in the stablecoin sector—reinforcing stablecoins’ role as a critical bridge between traditional finance and crypto, now recognized by mainstream capital markets. At the same time, companies such as Lion Group (brokerage) and SharpLink (sports betting marketing) tapped into Web3 through post-IPO fundraising, showing Web3 technology’s growing penetration into more vertical industries. Robinhood’s $200 million acquisition of Bitstamp further underscores sustained investor confidence in stablecoins and compliant CeFi platforms.

Bitcoin-focused firms attract capital: For example, Metaplanet, after shifting to a Bitcoin reserve strategy, secured $515 million in funding. Bitcoin mining firms BitMine and Hut 8 Mining raised $250 million and $220 million, respectively—reflecting strong investor confidence in Bitcoin-related assets and infrastructure amid bullish market expectations.

Post-IPO fundraising becomes the dominant route: Companies like Circle, Lion Group, Metaplanet, Nano Labs, SharpLink, and Hut 8 Mining—already listed or planning to list—commonly raised funds through IPOs or post-IPO debt/equity, rather than relying solely on crypto-native venture capital. This trend highlights the growing importance of traditional capital markets in Web3 fundraising, signaling the industry’s evolution from startup-driven growth to a more institutionalized and mature phase, while also reflecting public market endorsement of compliant and sustainable business models in the Web3 space.

According to data from the Cryptorank Dashboard, capital flows in the Web3 market for June 2025 showed a concentration trend similar to previous months, but with some shifts in the relative ranking of sectors:

CeFi leads by a wide margin, reflecting demand for maturity and compliance. The CeFi sector secured $3.3 billion in funding—nearly three times the total raised by all other sectors combined. This strongly suggests that, in the current market environment, capital is gravitating toward centralized entities with mature business models, higher liquidity, and stronger compliance prospects—aligning with the broader trend of increasing institutionalization and mainstream adoption in crypto.

Blockchain services and GameFi follow, driven by ecosystem growth and user potential. Blockchain services ranked second with $887.2 million in funding, highlighting sustained and strong demand for foundational ecosystem tools and enterprise solutions in Web3. GameFi saw a notable surge this month, jumping to third place with $454 million in funding. The sector was largely driven by a single large deal: SharpLink Gaming’s $425 million raise—underscoring the continued appeal of entertainment and content-focused projects.

DeFi remains steady; infrastructure keeps evolving. DeFi raised $202 million—well below CeFi but still at a healthy level, reflecting ongoing recognition of its core innovation and long-term value within Web3. Blockchain infrastructure projects secured $161 million, with funds supporting the advancement and optimization of foundational blockchain technology—considered essential to the Web3 ecosystem’s stability and growth.

Smaller but notable funding in Social and Chain sectors. The Social sector received $63 million, and Chain/public chain scalability projects raised $49.5 million. Though relatively modest in size, these areas remain significant as long-term growth drivers, especially for decentralized social networks and diverse base-layer blockchain solutions.

Overall, June 2025 showed a “barbell-shaped” investment pattern: On one end, heavily institutional, mature, and compliant CeFi players; on the other, sectors like blockchain services and GameFi, which offer strong user growth potential and foundational ecosystem value. Meanwhile, DeFi and infrastructure maintained steady investor interest, and although social and new chain projects accounted for smaller funding volumes, their long-term potential is still widely recognized. This indicates that while the market focuses on short-term returns and compliance, it hasn’t abandoned investments in the long-term development and adoption of Web3 technologies.

Based on data disclosed for 90 Web3 project fundraises in June 2025, the month’s funding activity showed a classic pattern: “mid-sized rounds dominated, alongside significant large-scale deals.”

Specifically, projects raising between $3 million and $10 million accounted for 37.8% of all deals, making this the most active funding range of the month. This reflects investors’ preference for projects that have already validated their product, built an initial user base, and shown growth potential. In the current environment of more cautious risk appetite, projects with clear business models and reasonable valuations attract more capital.

At both ends of the spectrum, only 6.7% of projects raised less than $1 million, while 18.9% raised between $1 million and $3 million—showing that investors have become more selective about very early-stage opportunities. On the other hand, large-scale deals were still notable: projects raising between $10 million–$20 million and $20 million–$50 million each made up 10% of the total, and those raising over $50 million accounted for 16.7%. Although relatively few in number, these large deals absorbed substantial capital, indicating that top institutional investors increasingly prefer concentrating funds in a small set of projects with higher certainty, stronger scaling potential, or strategic significance.

Overall, the June Web3 funding structure showed a distribution of “mid-sized projects as the backbone, large deals as key drivers.” Mid-sized projects continue to bring fresh innovation and energy to the industry, while a few large-scale projects attract massive funding thanks to scale advantages, institutional backing, and market position. This pattern highlights investors’ focus on growth, commercialization potential, and risk balance, and reflects the industry’s move toward a more rational and structured investment stage.

Based on data for 74 Web3 project funding rounds in June 2025 (excluding funding raised through IPOs, post-IPO debt/equity, and other traditional financial tools not covered by the Cryptorank Dashboard), the month’s funding activity showed a dual pattern of “active early-stage rounds, but stronger fundraising power in strategic and later rounds.”

By deal count, strategic rounds were the most active, making up 37.8%. These rounds often accompany strategic partnerships, resource integration, or targeted investments—reflecting the industry’s trend toward deeper cooperation and resource consolidation. At the same time, seed rounds (28.4%) and pre-seed rounds (16.2%) together accounted for over 44% of deals, showing that early innovation and new startups remain vibrant.

However, the funding amount distribution tells a different story: although strategic rounds had the most deals, they only accounted for 26.1% of total funds raised. Series C rounds represented just 1.4% of deal count but absorbed 21.9% of total capital—highlighting the strong fundraising capability of a few mature, top-tier projects. Series A and Series B rounds, while fewer in number, accounted for 17.4% and 15.0% of funding respectively. Overall, later-stage rounds (Series A/B/C) combined with strategic rounds attracted over 80% of the total funding, showing that capital clearly favors projects with proven business models and well-defined growth paths.

In summary, June 2025’s Web3 funding market showed a mix of “exploratory investment and concentrated, structured bets”: on one hand, large numbers of early-stage and strategic investments support innovation and ecosystem growth; on the other hand, substantial capital was directed to a handful of top projects with higher certainty—reflecting a shift toward more rational, professional capital allocation.

According to data published by Cryptorank on July 3, 2025, Coinbase Ventures was the most active investor in June, participating in nine projects—mainly focused on the DeFi sector (shown in dark blue). Pantera Capital followed closely, investing in seven projects, reflecting a similarly active pace. Other notable investors included Galaxy, GSR, and Animoca Brands, each backing multiple projects.

Overall, these top-tier investors typically have broad industry reach and diversified strategies, covering multiple Web3 verticals. Among them, blockchain services and DeFi appeared prominently in most active investors’ portfolios—highlighting the market’s continued focus on core service capabilities and decentralized financial applications, both widely viewed as key pillars for large-scale Web3 adoption.

At the same time, individual investors showed different preferences: some leaned more toward DeFi, while others focused on GameFi or infrastructure, reflecting differentiated strategies based on institutional expertise and market outlook. This further illustrates that while the Web3 market remains highly active, capital allocation is becoming increasingly specialized and segmented.

Highlighted Project of the Month

Yupp

Overview: Yupp is a platform dedicated to AI model discovery and evaluation, enabling users to freely explore and compare the latest AI technologies. Its evaluation process is community-powered: users submit prompts, compare answers generated by different models, and vote for the best one. These choices are digitally signed and used to train and refine AI models. 【3】

On June 13, Yupp announced it had raised $33 million in a seed round led by a16z Crypto. 【4】

Investors/Angel Backers: a16z Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, and angel investors including Gokul Rajaram.

Highlights:

1. Co-founded by former executives from Twitter, Google, and Coinbase, Yupp aims to become the default evaluation layer for future AI models, building a trustless and transparent AI feedback market. It already supports over 500 AI models.
2. The core mechanism: users enter a prompt and view side-by-side outputs from multiple AI models, then select the best answer. This choice creates a digitally signed preference data packet, later used for fine-tuning and evaluation. Users earn rewards and free access to the newest models, turning human judgment into a renewable economic resource and creating a flywheel: more engagement brings fresher evaluation data, which improves models and attracts even more users.
3. By introducing data freshness, Yupp ensures system vitality: older data is replaced by new feedback, preventing data stagnation. The entire process is transparently recorded on-chain, so no one can hide scores or manipulate results. This builds a neutral, fair, and trusted AI preference marketplace where users, developers, and model creators all benefit from shared, transparent incentives.

Momentum

Overview: Momentum is a decentralized exchange (DEX) built on the Move ecosystem, offering an efficient concentrated liquidity model that empowers protocols, liquidity providers, and traders with greater control, higher returns, and reduced trading costs. 【5】

On June 5, Momentum announced a strategic funding round led by OKX Ventures, valuing the project at $100 million. The funds will be dedicated to expanding DeFi initiatives within the Sui ecosystem. 【6】

Investors: OKX Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Gate Ventures, MEXC Ventures, KuCoin Ventures, Protagonist, DNA Fund, and others.

Highlights:

1. Momentum uses an innovative ve(3,3) incentive model. As of July 8, 2025, the platform reached $5.2 billion in trading volume and $133 million TVL within just a few months of launch. It’s built by a team led by ChefWEN, a former developer on Meta’s Libra project, and includes smart contract audits and real-time monitoring to ensure fund safety and user trust. 【7】
2. Its standout feature: dynamically adjusting incentives to reward active liquidity ranges. Liquidity providers (LPs) not only earn trading fees but also receive additional protocol and ecosystem rewards. Instead of spreading rewards over idle capital, Momentum focuses incentives on liquidity that supports real trading, improving capital efficiency and reducing waste—even during periods of low market volatility, maintaining attractive yield and long-term liquidity.
3. A tiered fee structure optimizes slippage based on asset pairs: stablecoin pairs approach zero slippage, while volatile assets balance volume and returns through layered fees, boosting capital efficiency and improving trading experience. Together, these features build Momentum’s competitive moat in decentralized trading.

HashPower

Overview: HashPower is an on-chain yield aggregation and staking platform that combines staking rewards from multiple premium projects into a single asset, letting users earn multi-token rewards while lowering participation barriers. 【8】

On June 4, HashPower announced a $4 million strategic funding round to expand global decentralized mining capacity and support AI infrastructure through permissionless on-chain integration. 【9】

Investors: HashKey Capital, FBG Capital, Hailstone Labs, DePIN X Capital, among others.

Highlights:

1. HashPower deeply integrates traditional crypto mining with blockchain, allowing users to participate via tokenized assets without managing physical hardware. The platform operates over 80,000 mining machines in the U.S., Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Ethiopia, ranks among the top three global IPFS contributors, and is a major supplier to IO.net and Aethir.
2. Users can supply assets like USDT, external protocol tokens, or H100 GPUs to earn HPX tokens representing mining revenue rights. Using blockchain oracle technology, HashPowerX transparently distributes real mining rewards in real-time, removing the need for hardware management while delivering genuine hashpower returns.
3. HashPowerX has signed MOUs worth $60 million with eight institutions, including Aethir and Automata Network, to jointly advance decentralized mining and AI infrastructure. With its global node network, HashPower combines DePIN and AI to ensure fair and efficient on-chain reward distribution.
4. Users only need to stake a single asset to earn diversified staking and mining yields from multiple premium projects—simplifying participation and maximizing returns, even for users without technical expertise.

Avantis

Overview: Avantis is an oracle-powered synthetic derivatives protocol that allows users to trade cryptocurrencies and real-world assets (RWAs) with up to 100x leverage. Users can also provide USDC liquidity to act as market makers and earn yield. The project aims to make leveraged trading on a wide range of assets accessible to anyone, with low fees, self-custody, and transparent execution, while giving everyone the opportunity to profit as a market maker from complex derivative products. 【10】

On June 3, Avantis announced it had completed an $8 million Series A funding round, co-led by Founders Fund and Pantera Capital. Following this round, Avantis’s total funding has reached $12 million. 【11】

Investors / angel investors: Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, Symbolic Capital, SALT Fund, Flowdesk, among others.

Highlights:

1. Launched in 2024, Avantis has become a leading derivatives protocol on the Base blockchain, supporting both trading and market making for cryptocurrencies, forex, and commodities as RWAs. The platform has surpassed $1.06 billion in cumulative trading volume and holds over $21 million in TVL. It also plans to expand into stocks, sports markets, and prediction markets in the future, further broadening its trading product offerings and market reach. 【12】
2. Avantis has pioneered several innovative features: including loss rebates on specific trades (to balance open interest skew), positive slippage (executing trades better than market price), and one-stop RWA trading (supporting assets like JPY, gold, Bitcoin, etc.). Liquidity providers (LPs) can flexibly choose between passive or active market making strategies, combining time locks and risk preference settings to enhance potential returns and capital efficiency.
3. Avantis is currently advancing a major technical upgrade, planning to expand into new markets such as equities, sports betting, and prediction markets. To achieve this, it will rebuild its AMM system to handle diverse price feeds and develop a custom EVM-compatible blockchain that enables zero-gas, high-speed trading. The new V2 version is expected to launch in the coming months and, according to the team, will deliver up to 10x greater capital efficiency while enabling cross-margin trading to further increase flexibility and market depth.

OpenTrade

Overview: OpenTrade is an institutional-grade lending and yield platform for stablecoins, designed to offer on-chain structured financial products backed by investment-grade real-world assets (RWA) to Web3 CFOs. The platform sources short-term, investment-grade, risk-weighted assets through global financial institutions, asset managers, and B2B networks, and packages them into on-chain yield products. 【13】

On June 11, OpenTrade announced a $7 million strategic round led by Notion Capital and Mercury Fund. 【14】

Investors: Notion Capital, Mercury Fund, a16z crypto, AlbionVC, CMCC Global, among others.

Highlights:

1. OpenTrade enables Web3 institutions to deposit stablecoins into U.S. Treasury bills, commercial paper, and other high-quality assets, offering stablecoin yields to users in high-inflation regions. According to official data, its assets under management grew to $50 million last year, with nearly $200 million in annual trading volume and a 20% quarter-over-quarter increase in the first half of this year. 【15】
2. By providing the underlying technology for partners like Criptan (Spain) and Littio (Colombia), users can access dollar and euro stablecoin yields of up to 9% directly within familiar apps. For example, Spanish users can earn 4% EURC yield via Criptan, and Colombian users can earn 6% USD yield via Littio — far exceeding local bank USD account rates of less than 0.4% per year. This makes yield accessible and truly empowers underbanked markets.
3. OpenTrade offers a diverse range of yield products backed by government bonds, corporate bonds, ETFs, private credit, trade finance, and DeFi assets, delivering predictable, risk-adjusted stable returns.
4. Looking ahead, OpenTrade plans to support an almost unlimited number of yield products with cross-chain and fiat settlement compatibility. Users can create embedded self-custody wallets and log in or recover them using Google SSO, providing a near Web2-like user experience. The platform also plans to introduce more asset classes, including private credit, public fixed income, and trade finance, further expanding yield sources and market potential.

Conclusion

In June 2025, the Web3 sector completed a total of 119 fundraising deals, reaching a total amount of $5.14 billion — the highest monthly total recorded in 2025 so far, highlighting a strong rebound in capital inflows. This month’s fundraising was marked by a high degree of concentration and clear institutional dominance. The CeFi sector led with an impressive $3.3 billion — nearly three times the combined total of all other sectors — largely driven by active large-scale mergers, acquisitions, and post-IPO fundraising. This trend reflects the accelerating integration between Web3 and traditional finance.

In terms of deal sizes, projects raising between $3 million and $10 million accounted for the largest share (37.8%). At the same time, large deals exceeding $50 million made up 16.7% of the total, creating a structure characterized by “a strong middle tier complemented by standout large deals.” From a funding stage perspective, early-stage projects were highly active in number, but the majority of capital was concentrated in mid-to-late stages, forming a pattern of “exploratory investments alongside targeted, large-scale bets.”

The month’s key fundraising projects also showcased the sector’s diversity and differentiated competition:

• Yupp is building a decentralized AI evaluation and feedback market that uses human preference data to improve AI models.
• Momentum, on the Sui ecosystem, innovates with concentrated liquidity and the ve(3,3) model to boost LP returns and capital efficiency.
• HashPower combines real-world computing power with on-chain tokenization, enabling users to share global decentralized mining revenue without owning hardware.
• Avantis focuses on leveraged derivatives trading of RWAs and plans to achieve zero-gas, high-speed trading through a custom EVM-compatible chain.
• OpenTrade offers institutional-grade on-chain yield products backed by high-quality global assets, providing predictable USD/EUR returns to users in high-inflation markets.

Overall, the Web3 fundraising market is transitioning from hype-driven speculation to a more mature stage, as capital allocation becomes more rational, layered, and increasingly focused on regulatory compliance, clear business models, and stronger connections to real-world assets.


Reference：

1. Cryptorank , https://cryptorank.io/funding-analytics
2. Cryptorank, https://cryptorank.io/funding-rounds
3. Yupp, https://yupp.ai/
4. a16z Crypto, https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/investing-in-yupp/
5. Momentum , https://app.mmt.finance/
6. decrypt, https://decrypt.co/323849/momentum-raises-strategic-round-led-by-okx-ventures-coinbase-ventures-protagonist-and-dna-fund
7. defillama, https://defillama.com/protocol/dexs/momentum
8. HashPower, https://www.hashpowerx.com/
9. Chainwire, https://chainwire.org/2025/06/04/hashpower-secures-4m-investment-to-advance-decentralized-mining-and-ai-infrastructure/?mfk=N7Aai5XdCSDy9ObM4BNKA9CGkXt0KI62n7WWjep%2BsV%2Faw964VR0UxoEJLzrxzgTThV%2FsF41lASBw6bNxXDgL%2BVF%2BMkjxpIlseNPbKVHVgtv0zQ%3D%3D
10. Avantis, https://www.avantisfi.com/
11. The Block, https://www.theblock.co/post/356775/peter-thiel-founders-fund-base-avantis-crypto-funding
12. defillama, https://defillama.com/protocol/avantis
13. OpenTrade, https://www.opentrade.io/
14. Coindesk, https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/06/10/uks-opentrade-raises-7m-to-expand-stablecoin-yield-access-in-inflation-hit-markets
15. OpenTrade, https://medium.com/opentrade/fundraising-in-depth-article-40f1c04c46f1

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