Industry Research

Funding to Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies companies is set to hit a record in 2017

July 9, 2017

Investments to the Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies sector made a strong start to the year with 72% of last yearsâ€™ total funding already committed.Â

Total investment grew between 2014 and 2016, steadily increasing at a CAGR of 14.2%.
The increase in investment looks set to continue in 2017 as a total of $412m was invested in the first half of the year. This was partly due to a few large deals including a $107m deal to Blockchain company R3 CEV in May 2017 which made up 26.0% of the total funding in the first half of 2017.
The number of deals looks set to fall by the end of the year with only 37% of deals closed in 2016 finalised in H1 2017. This led to an increase in the average deal size from $5.0m in 2017 to $9.2m in the first two quarters of this year.

Blockhain & Cryptocurrencies investment reached record levels in Q2 2017

Investments in the second quarter of the year rocketed with $241m more capital commited than the funding levels seen in the previous quarter. In addition to the $107m deal to R3 CEV, there were two other deals valued over $40m in Q2 2017. Blockchain servers producer Canaan Creative raised $43.6m in series A funding. This was followed by a $40m deal to London-based bitcoin platform Blockchain.
However, the number of deals to the sector has fallen by 46.7% YoY from 45 in Q2 last year to only 24 deals last quarter.
Discounting the massive R3 CEV deal in Q2 2017, total funding was still up 59.6% YoY in Q2 2017.

Europe is continuously taking larger deal share of global Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies investments

Europeâ€™s deal share in the Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies sector increased by 18% between 2014 and 2016, as the continent gains ground on the North American share. Asiaâ€™s deal share has shrunk by 2% in the same period in line with a drop in deal share in North America.
The deal share to other continents increased by 7% between 2014 and 2016 as the number of deals to companies based in South America, Africa and Australasia increased. The largest deal to date in these regions was a $4m equity crowdfunding round to ChronoBank, a Financial Blockchain company based in Sydney Australia in February 2017.
The first half of 2017 has seen the share of deals to Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies companies based in North America rise to 41% with much of this increase coming from a further fall in the share of deals to companies based in Asia.