Coinbase Ventures struck a new investment deal almost every two days in Q3 of 2021, details published in the Coinbase blog show.
According to the October 29 blog post, Coinbase Ventures had inked a record 49 investments over the quarter, becoming one of cryptocurrency’s “most active VC investors.”
“In Q3, Ventures made a record 49 investments, averaging a new deal every ~1.8 days,” Coinbase wrote, adding that the platform has seen investments jump from 24 in the first quarter and 28 in Q2.
Coinbase launched the Ventures platform in April 2018, targeting financial investments into early-stage start-ups in the crypto and blockchain space. The project has seen deals ranging from six-figure dollar investments to multi-million financing rounds across decentralised finance (DeFi), Web3 infrastructure, centralized finance (CeFi), NFTs, and Metaverse platforms.
Protocols and Web3 have seen most of the investment at 29%, while DeFi (24%), CeFi (18%) and Developer Tools (15%) make up the top five categories.
As a result of the growth in invested deals, CV now has helped more than 200 companies and projects across the market.
Crypto growth in 2021
Since its inception four years ago, Coinbase Ventures’ focus has been on projects aimed at accelerating growth within the crypto ecosystem.
While commercial partnerships and M&A formed part of the investment strategy in the last couple of years, 2021 has seen a lot of focus fall on projects and companies targeting growth across the entire crypto ecosystem.
As such, 90% of invested capital across the Coinbase Ventures portfolio has come in 2021, with half of the companies in the 200+ list added year-to-date.
Coinbase Ventures’ record investment comes as a host of crypto-focused companies also look to establish a presence in the crypto space. Square and Twitter are two of the highlights, offering Bitcoin-focused adoption features recently to add to efforts by Stripe and Tik Tok.