Rebound on Paper, Not in Cash
Carta's Q1 2026 VC fund performance report tracked 2,775 funds holding approximately $119.3 billion in assets. The headline declares that venture capital is back, but the recovery is primarily in book value. Median Total Value to Paid-In (TVPI) has risen for six consecutive quarters across nearly all vintage years, signaling the end of the 2022-2023 valuation reset. However, Distributions to Paid-In (DPI) tells a different story: median DPI for 2019 and 2020 vintage funds is barely above zero, with over half of these funds having returned no cash to LPs. Even older vintages (2017-2018), now nearing ten years, show fewer than 20% reaching a 1x DPI (returning LPs' original capital).
The core issue is that the J-curve has stalled on its second half. Valuations are rising (as TVPI confirms), but exits are not materializing. The IPO window remains open only to a few names, M&A is selective, and many assets remain marked at high prices without a liquidity event. Industry bodies such as PitchBook, Preqin, NVCA, and Wellington all point to liquidity as the dominant bottleneck. The solutions being measured are secondary markets, continuation vehicles, GP-led secondary transactions, and LP stake sales. For GPs, the signal is uncomfortable but clear: a fund with strong TVPI and near-zero DPI will face tough questions from LPs within 12 to 18 months. Those who actively manage a path to liquidity (partial exits, secondaries, continuation funds) gain a decisive advantage over those who merely report paper gains.
Power Law Distribution: Winner-Takes-All Squeezes the Middle
Carta's data reveals the extreme dispersion inherent in venture capital. In almost every vintage year, the 90th percentile net IRR exceeds 20%, while the 75th percentile hovers around 15.5%. The gap between top-quartile and top-decile funds is enormous and compounds over time: a 20% annualized return over 10 years yields 6.2x, while 10% yields only 2.6x. The median VC fund delivers a slow, illiquid 2.6x at best. Moreover, capital is concentrating heavily: funds over $100 million captured 57% of all VC fundraising in 2025, up from 31% eight years ago. While most new funds are still under $25 million, the bulk of capital flows to mega-funds. The industry has become a barbell: mega-funds raise on balance sheets and brand, differentiated micro-funds survive on edge strategies, and undifferentiated middle-tier managers are being squeezed out.
Crypto VC: Even More Dispersed, More Reflexive
Carta does not break out crypto-specific data, but the same physics apply and are amplified. Crypto VC exhibits greater dispersion, concentration, and reflexivity than traditional venture capital. The tourist capital that flooded in during 2021 is now leaving earliest and hardest. For pre-seed and seed investors, the only durable edge lies in picking the right person before the crowd arrives. Data consistently shows that the median is a trap; alpha lives in the tail.
Top 10 Crypto Fundraises in June: Tokenization, DeFi, Institutional Infrastructure Lead
1. Securitize (SPAC Merger/PIPE, ~$400M, June 26): The BlackRock-backed tokenization leader goes public on NYSE via merger with Cantor Equity Partners II (ticker SECZ), raising ~$400M including a $225M oversubscribed PIPE. Clients include Apollo, KKR, Hamilton Lane, VanEck; Securitize is also building NYSE's tokenized securities platform.
2. Digital Asset (Strategic Round, $355M, June 11): Led by a16z crypto, valuation $2B. Follow-ons include Citadel Securities, ADIA, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Apollo, Optiver, CME Ventures, S&P Global, Coinbase Ventures. Digital Asset operates Canton, a privacy-enhanced L1 for regulated capital markets, already supporting ~$6T in tokenized asset issuance, with clients like JPMorgan, DTCC, and Visa.
3. Morpho (Strategic Round, $175M, June 9): Co-led by Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, a16z crypto, with Apollo Funds, Circle Ventures, VanEck participating. Valuation up to $2B. Morpho enables anyone to build a customizable lending market ("your own Aave") and counts Coinbase, Kraken, Anchorage, Galaxy as clients. This is the largest DeFi round reported to date.
4. Fomo (Series B, $75M, June 22): Led by Index Ventures, valuation $550M. A non-custodial social trading app that abstracts wallets, gas, and cross-chain. Over 625K users and $4B in trading volume. Most notable consumer round this month.
5. SignalPlus (Series B, $50M, June 2): Led by HashKey Capital, valuation $500M, with Goldman Sachs as advisor. Institutional-grade options and derivatives terminal ("Bloomberg for crypto options"), serving Cumberland, FalconX, Galaxy Digital. Q4 2025 platform volume was $160B, with 74% quarterly CAGR since 2023.
6. Allium (Series B, $40M, June 23): Led by Amplify Partners, with Kleiner Perkins, Theory Ventures. Cleans and structures on-chain data from 150+ chains for institutional clients including Visa, Fed, a16z, Coinbase.
7. Trace Finance (Series A, $32M, June 17): Led by CoinFund, with Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, Jump Capital, Paxos, Chainlink Labs, and Solana's Anatoly Yakovenko as angel. Brazil-based cross-border payment infrastructure combining local banking rails, FX, compliance, and stablecoin settlement. Processed over $10B in institutional volume; valuation ~10x its 2022 seed round.
8. EDGE Markets (Series A, $29.2M, June 8): Led by CoinFund. Infrastructure for regulated prediction and betting markets: EDGE Pro (high-throughput deposit account for market makers) and EDGE Connect (real-time payment channel reducing costs by >70%).
9. Onyx Odds (Series A, $20M, June 24): Led by Kraken parent Payward, valuation $220M. Sports prediction market app that will integrate Payward Services and crypto trading.
10. Karta (Series A, $15M equity + $125M credit line, June 17): Led by Galaxy Ventures. Issues U.S. credit cards operated via WhatsApp for global travelers and high-net-worth non-residents, combining stablecoin infrastructure and an AI concierge. Revenue and volume grew 10x in 2025, and another 4x in Q1 2026.
11. El Dorado (Series A, $9M, June 18): Led by Paradigm, with Coinbase Ventures, Verda Ventures. P2P stablecoin wallet for underserved Latin American markets, expanded to enterprise payments with 100+ business clients (including EV importers from China).
New Fund Announcements: Variant and Framework Extend to AI/Autonomy
Variant closed Variant Fund IV at $222M, focusing on an "autonomy" thesis: any application that gives users more agency, spanning permissionless finance, crypto infrastructure, and agentic AI. Framework Ventures closed an oversubscribed Fund IV at $400M (FVIV), with roughly half already deployed. Check sizes from $1M to $50M, covering pre-seed to Series A. Mandate now extends from crypto (stablecoins, tokenization) into AI, robotics, energy, and fintech. LP base is institutional, led by an Ivy League endowment, sovereign wealth funds, and fund-of-funds.
Upcoming Events & Accelerators
ETHGlobal Lisbon 2026 (July 24-26, Lisbon), ETHOnline 2026 (Sept 4-16, online), Colosseum Fall Hackathon (Sept 28 - Nov 2, online). Accelerators: Alliance DAO (ALL18 starts Sept 7, rolling), Colosseum Accelerator (via Eternal competition, $250K), Outlier Ventures Base Camp (12 weeks, covering DeAI, DeFi, RWA, DePIN), Techstars Web3 (standard terms).