April 2026 Crypto Funding Brief
Welcome to our Monthly Crypto Funding Brief. Each month, we bring you the latest activities in the fundraising landscape. This newsletter aims to keep you informed about key developments, significant fundraises, active investors, and upcoming token unlocks, helping you stay ahead in the dynamic world of investments.
In this edition:
- Largest Venture Funding Rounds
- Most Active Investors
- Distribution of Fundraises by Category
- Largest Digital Asset Treasury Funding Rounds
- Distribution of Fundraises by Stage
- M&A Activity
- Notable Fundraise Filings
- Token Unlocks for April 2026 / May 2026
Monthly Fundraising Highlights
In April 2026, 105 crypto companies secured a combined $1.86B in funding across 109 rounds. Total capital raised was down approximately $2.42B and there were 20 less rounds when compared to last month. Of this total, 6 companies raised approximately $371M through debt or post-IPO equity.
Largest Venture Funding Rounds
The largest venture round this month was CAEX’s strategic raise for $380M, which included notable investors such as OKX Ventures and HashKey Capital. CAEX is a newly announced crypto exchange that will operate in Vietnam.
Most Active Investors
As shown in the chart below, the top five investors made a total of 17 investments this month. Their investments spanned multiple sectors, including Artificial Intelligence, Betting & Prediction Markets, Cross-chain Protocols, DeFi, Digital Asset Treasury, Gaming & Metaverse, Media, Real-World Assets (RWAs), Security Services, Trading Services, and Wallet Services.
Tether, which had the most deals led this month, had a notable investment in Stablecoin Development Corporation, which is a Digital Asset Treasury company focused on the acquisition of SKY governance tokens. SKY is the governance token for Sky.money, the rebranded and post-migration successor to MakerDAO, the decentralized protocol originally responsible for creating the DAI stablecoin.
Distribution of Fundraises by Sector: April 2026
In April, DeFi and Real-World Assets (RWAs) companies led in total deals, with 28 companies raising $519.53M across 32 rounds.
Additionally, the Exchanges sector led in total capital raised, with 4 companies raising a total of $591.5M. Kraken notably raised $200M from Deutsche Börse for a 1.5% stake in the crypto exchange, valuing the crypto exchange at approximately $13.3B.
Digital Asset Treasury Funding Rounds
In April, fundraising activity among Digital Asset Treasury companies included 3 companies raising capital across 3 rounds. Metaplanet, a Japanese Bitcoin DATCO, acquired at least 5,075 more Bitcoins in April, maintaining their position as the third largest holder of BTC among publicly traded companies.
Distribution of Fundraises by Stage
In April, Strategic saw the highest deal activity and capital raised with 21 companies raising a combined $1.07B across 21 rounds.
The most notable was KernelDAO's $303 million Strategic raise on April 28, 2026, just 10 days after its Kelp DAO sub-protocol suffered the largest DeFi exploit of 2026. Attackers linked to North Korea's Lazarus Group drained roughly 116,500 rsETH ($292 million). The raise was led by Aave, with participation from ConsenSys, Lido Finance, and Ether.fi. The strategic funding is intended to help stabilize liquidity within the DeFi ecosystem.
M&A Activity
In April 2026, the crypto space saw 4 M&A transactions. This was a significant drop in crypto related M&A activity when compared to the prior 6 months average of 18 deals.
Notable Fundraise Filings
Funds that reported the most recent fundraises through Form D or D/A filings.
Token Unlocks: April 2026 and May 2026
This chart highlights major token unlocks exclusively for investors in April 2026 and May 2026. Notably, LayerZero unlocked $21.6 million on April 20, 2026 and will unlock an additional $19.17 million on May 20, 2026. Meanwhile, SUI unlocked a combined total of $34.21 million on April 3, 2026 and May 3, 2026. These figures specifically exclude other token allocation categories such as team member distributions, airdrops, or other non-investor allocations.
