Coinbase Ventures, the corporate capital (VC) arm of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, led the ranking of cryptocurrency-focused VCs with 30 deals in the first half of 2026.
Runner-up Animoca Brands completed 19 investments, while Silicon Valley VC a16z recorded 18 deals and stablecoin giant Tether recorded 15, According to to the CryptoRank data aggregator.
Over the past 12 months, Coinbase Ventures has made 75 of the top trades on the benchmark market, followed by Animoca Brands with 40, YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs) with 39, GSR with 31 and a16z with 30.
These VC deals are bucking a bear market that has seen the total amount raised by cryptocurrency companies drop to $1.4 billion in June, down 63% from $3.8 billion in April.
The number of deals also dropped in June to 61 fundraising rounds, down from 89 rounds in May. Still, last month showed a slight recovery compared to April, when cryptocurrency VC funding hit a two-year low of $698 million across 71 fundraising rounds.
So far in July, crypto companies have raised $456 million in 12 rounds of funding.
Top vigorous investors and top categories by financing deals. Source: CryptoRank
Looking at deals over the past six months, Coinbase Ventures has participated in seven investment rounds related to payment protocols, four rounds related to DeFi projects, and three rounds related to infrastructure projects and real asset tokenization projects, respectively.
However, the number of unique investors dropped to 242 in June from 452 unique investors in October 2025.
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DeFi, payments, AI remain leading VC categories
Decentralized finance (DeFi), payments and artificial intelligence attracted the lion’s share of cryptocurrency VC funding last year.
According to CryptoRank, DeFi protocols saw 216 fundraising rounds during this period, payments startups recorded 131 rounds, and crypto AI companies raised 128 rounds.
Crypto VC capital, invested by category, 1-year chart. Source: CryptoRank
Infrastructure providers raised 110 rounds of funding, while all other sectors saw less than 100 investment rounds last year.
In terms of geographic distribution, over the past six months, US-based VCs contributed $5.8 billion and Australian-based VCs contributed $3.6 billion. More than $11.6 billion was invested from undisclosed locations.
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