Interest in Bitcoin startups from venture capitalists has significantly intensified, showing a marked contrast to trends observed across the wider cryptocurrency sector last year.
According to recent findings from Trammell Venture Partners (TVP), funding for Bitcoin-focused startups saw a dramatic increase in 2023, despite a general downturn in venture capital activity. TVP’s report highlighted that the number of pre-seed investment deals for Bitcoin-native companies skyrocketed by 360% last year, with the total number of funded Bitcoin companies growing by 56.9%.
Exploding VC Investment in Bitcoin Startups
TVP defines “Bitcoin native companies” as businesses that are intrinsically linked to the success of the Bitcoin network and are built around the belief that Bitcoin is the future global monetary asset. This category primarily includes early-stage startups but excludes more mature firms, Bitcoin miners, and broader crypto-oriented companies.
While the total venture capital poured into Bitcoin fell by 12.5% to $305 million in 2023, the number of venture deals involving Bitcoin startups increased by 69.2%. In stark contrast, the cryptocurrency sector as a whole experienced a 64.5% drop in funding and a 35.3% decline in deal count.
Notably, venture deals in the broader crypto market still outnumber those in the Bitcoin sector by approximately 20:1. However, the significant growth in Bitcoin-focused investments last year drew attention from major investors like General Catalyst, Y Combinator, and Draper Associates, led by prominent Bitcoin advocate Tim Draper.
“Despite the challenges faced by the broader venture capital scene in 2023, the sector focusing on Bitcoin-native startups not only survived but thrived,” TVP remarked in a post to X on Friday. “The outlook for Bitcoin-native startups is very promising.”
Renewed Bitcoin Development Activity
This influx of funding has coincided with renewed developer activity on the Bitcoin network, spurred by innovations such as the NFT protocol Ordinals, the Bitcoin computing framework BitVM, and the forthcoming “Runes” protocol, which will facilitate the creation of efficient tokens on Bitcoin.
This week saw a resurgence in Ordinals activity, which led to an increase in Bitcoin transaction costs. This rise in fees is pushing developers to explore and develop more effective Bitcoin layer 2 solutions to enhance transaction efficiency, with funding increasingly supporting these initiatives.
CoinMetrics co-founder Nic Carter expressed his observations on the burgeoning interest in Bitcoin startups, stating on Friday, “Anecdotally, I’ve never seen more Bitcoin startups in my career. The current pace is at least an order of magnitude greater than it has ever been.”