Crypto fundraising rebounded sharply in May 2026 as mega-rounds returned and deal activity improved after a softer spring period.
Venture capital funding rose to $3.52 billion across 83 rounds during the month, according to CryptoRank MCP’s May 2026 Crypto Fundraising Report.
That marked a 408% increase in capital from April and a 19% rise in deal count.
The rebound was driven by large late-stage and strategic transactions, led by Kalshi’s $1.2 billion Series F round and a $670 million strategic investment in Dunamu.
Broader disclosed capital, including mergers and acquisitions, reached $9.57 billion for the month.
Source: CryptoRank MCP
Mega-rounds bring venture capital back into focus
May’s VC rebound was not evenly spread across the market.
Capital was concentrated heavily in larger, later-stage, and strategic rounds, suggesting investors remain selective even as risk appetite improves.
Series A, B, C+ and strategic transactions accounted for $3.10 billion, or about 88% of all VC capital raised during the month.
That category surged 832% from April, helped by Kalshi’s $1.2 billion round and Dunamu’s $670 million strategic stake.
Kalshi, a federally regulated prediction-market exchange, was the largest VC transaction of the month. Its Series F round drew backing from Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, and Sequoia Capital.
Dunamu, the South Korean operator of Upbit, followed with a strategic investment from Hana Financial Group.
Other large VC rounds included Exa’s $250 million Series C, Stripe-backed Arc’s $222 million pre-sale, Elliptic’s $120 million Series D, and OpenRouter’s $113 million Series B.
Gemini also raised $100 million in a strategic round, while Fun and Fasset attracted $72 million and $51 million.
Prediction markets lead capital, AI leads deal activity
Prediction markets dominated VC capital in May, largely because of Kalshi’s $1.2 billion round.
That single transaction made the category the biggest dollar recipient during the month.
AI led by deal count with 17 rounds. The category was supported by larger transactions such as Exa’s $250 million Series C and OpenRouter’s $113 million Series B, but the report also pointed to a long tail of seed and pre-seed rounds across agents, developer tooling, and AI-native crypto infrastructure.
Exchange-related companies also attracted substantial capital. The category raised $946 million, led by Dunamu, Gemini, Coinone, and SignalPlus.
Centralised exchanges dominated the dollar value, while perpetual decentralised exchanges such as Variational and PopDEX attracted smaller Series A and seed-stage rounds.
Payments remained another active area, with capital flowing into emerging-market and stablecoin-linked infrastructure.
Fun raised $72 million, Fasset raised $51 million, Stitch raised $25 million, and smaller rounds went to settlement and clearing-focused projects.
Source: CryptoRank MCP
Investor base shows signs of stabilisation
The number of unique crypto investors rose to 255 in May, up 27% from 201 in April.
That was the first decisive bounce since October 2025, although the investor base remained 44% below the May 2024 peak of 458.
Andreessen Horowitz led the month’s investor activity with nine deals, including four as lead investor. Coinbase Ventures and Animoca Brands followed with seven deals each.
The report said co-investment activity was strong, while lead positions remained concentrated among the most active funds.
M&A dominates disclosed capital
Mergers and acquisitions accounted for the largest share of May’s disclosed capital. M&A represented 58.0% of the month’s $9.57 billion total, compared with 36.8% for VC.
Crypto M&A reached $5.55 billion across 19 deals, the highest monthly total in the trailing 12 months. Bullish’s $4.2 billion acquisition of Equiniti accounted for 76% of the total and heavily shaped the month’s numbers.
The next largest deals included IREN’s $625 million acquisition of Mirantis and MoonPay’s $100 million acquisition of DFlow.
Other notable transactions included Sol Strategies’ acquisition of Houdini Swap and Alpha Compute’s acquisition of GAMEE.
The report said May’s activity showed continued demand from large strategic buyers, crypto-native acquirers, and companies looking to consolidate capabilities in payments, exchanges, interoperability, and infrastructure.
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