In November, venture capital funding within the cryptocurrency industry remained subdued, maintaining a trend of slowdown that has been evident since late 2025. The limited deal activity was predominantly centered around a few significant financing rounds by well-established firms. As previously highlighted by Cointelegraph, the third quarter displayed a similar trend: total funding reached $4.65 billion, as per Galaxy Digital's data, yet the number of deals fell behind as capital mainly targeted larger, more mature companies. Compared to previous bullish periods, both crypto venture capital funding and deal activity continue to lag significantly. According to Galaxy Digital, this pattern persisted into November, as evidenced by data from RootData, which recorded only 57 disclosed crypto funding rounds for the month. This figure represents one of the year's lowest, notwithstanding high-profile rounds like Revolut's $1 billion and Kraken's $800 million, the latter of which comes ahead of its expected public offering.
RootData's analysis further reveals that most of the deals in November were within centralized finance, decentralized finance, and NFT-GameFi sectors. While broader market conditions contribute to the slowdown in deal volume, this trend poses long-term risks, according to Sarah Austin, co-founder of the real-world-asset gaming platform Titled. She expressed concern that "investing in tough times is when the best deals are made," implying that the current conditions could negatively impact the industry’s future.
The latest VC Roundup edition highlights just three funding deals across the decentralized perpetuals, onchain-yield, and Web3-AI sectors. Ostium, a decentralized perpetuals platform founded by former Harvard classmates, has secured $24 million to expand its onchain perpetuals protocol into non-crypto markets, including stocks, commodities, indexes, and currencies. The funding is aimed at positioning Ostium as a leading perpetuals protocol for real-world assets and will be used to enhance its smart contracts, pricing infrastructure, and liquidity engines for higher trading volumes. The company is supported by investors such as General Catalyst, Jump Crypto, and Susquehanna International Group, along with angel investors from Bridgewater, Two Sigma, and Brevan Howard.
Meanwhile, Axis has raised $5 million in a private round led by Galaxy Ventures to develop an onchain yield protocol offering exposure to Bitcoin, gold, and the US dollar. This capital will aid in creating a transparent onchain yield infrastructure for digital assets. The funding round included participation from investors like OKX Ventures, Maven 11 Capital, CMS Holdings, and FalconX. Axis has already deployed $100 million in private capital through its beta platform to rigorously test the protocol.
In another development, PoobahAI, a startup based in Texas, closed a $2 million seed round to advance its no-code development platform. This platform allows users to create tokenized Web3 networks and AI agents without needing to write code, providing tools for creators, developers, and businesses to launch onchain ecosystems and deploy AI agents with ease. The integration of AI and decentralized infrastructure in this emerging ecosystem is seen as a pathway to more autonomous and user-controlled digital systems. The funding round was led by FourTwoAlpha, a venture firm noted for its early investments in Ethereum and Cosmos.