Investors Are Betting on Infrastructure Over Hype
While the crypto market remains about two trillion dollars below its late-2021 high, venture capital is still finding its way into the sector. According to data from DeFiLlama, startups raised more than $258 million during the first week of February alone. But here’s the interesting part: the money isn’t chasing the next meme coin or speculative token. Instead, it’s flowing into the unsexy but essential parts of the ecosystem—custody services, compliance software, and institutional infrastructure.
The deal breakdown tells the story. While DeFi projects and payment companies got some attention, the biggest checks went to businesses that help traditional finance safely enter the crypto world. Think of it as investors switching from gambling on jackpots to building the casino itself. These companies generate actual revenue and can weather prolonged bear markets while preparing the rails for wider adoption down the road.
Three Deals That Show Where the Money’s Going
Anchorage Digital grabbed headlines with a $100 million funding round led by Tether, the stablecoin giant. Anchorage isn’t your typical crypto startup—it’s a federally chartered digital-asset bank offering custody, trading, and settlement services to institutions. The fresh capital will help it expand compliance capabilities and global reach at exactly the moment when traditional banks are exploring tokenized deposits and faster settlement systems.
TRM Labs, which makes blockchain analytics software, closed a $70 million Series C that valued the company at $1 billion. Their tools help exchanges, banks, and law enforcement track suspicious transactions and automate risk checks across multiple blockchains. As regulators tighten know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering requirements, investors see this kind of monitoring technology as mandatory, not optional.
Finally, Jupiter—a decentralized exchange aggregator built on Solana—secured $35 million from ParaFi Capital. What makes this deal unusual is that it was structured in the project’s own stablecoin with long-term token lockups. Jupiter also announced plans to integrate with prediction market Polymarket, showing that product development continues even when retail traders have mostly checked out.
Why These Companies Matter
Each of these three addresses a real roadblock that’s kept institutions on the sidelines: safe asset storage, transparent transaction monitoring, and efficient on-chain liquidity. By funding these infrastructure plays, investors are essentially betting that crypto’s next growth phase won’t be fueled by retail frenzy but by boring, reliable services that meet institutional standards. It’s reminiscent of the dot-com crash, when the survivors weren’t the flashiest websites but the companies building the underlying internet infrastructure that powered Web 2.0.
Andreessen Horowitz Goes All In With $15 Billion Fund
Beyond the weekly deals, venture heavyweight Andreessen Horowitz recently closed more than $15 billion across several funds, with significant portions earmarked for both AI and crypto. Co-founder Ben Horowitz positioned the raise as backing America’s tech leadership, arguing that open, programmable platforms and sovereign AI models will determine who wins the next decade. The fund represents roughly one-fifth of all U.S. venture capital deployed last year, ensuring that promising startups can access growth capital even if public markets stay cold.
Put it all together, and a pattern emerges: major investors aren’t abandoning crypto—they’re just pickier about where they put their money. The focus has shifted to companies that can meet institutional risk requirements, plug into traditional finance, and deliver real-world utility. If market conditions improve, the infrastructure being built today could enable a far more mature and compliance-ready expansion of digital assets worldwide.
