Wintermute Ventures reviewed roughly 600 firms final yr and funded solely 4% of them. The enterprise arm of algorithmic buying and selling agency Wintermute accomplished 23 offers in 2025, with solely 20% of the businesses that have been reviewed reaching correct due diligence and fewer securing funding.
The agency’s founder and chief govt officer, Evgeny Gaevoy, sees the selectivity as proof of how far the corporate has grown because the business’s speculative peak.
“Fairly stoked how far we went from 2021-2022 days of ‘Spray and Pray’ to 4% acceptance charge,” Gaevoy wrote on X.
The disclosure, posted on Thursday, January 8, 2026, supplied a glimpse into the deal-making equipment of a crypto enterprise agency.
Wintermute Ventures claimed that it tracked almost each alternative that crossed its desk since February 2025, although the agency acknowledged its knowledge “isn’t good on the prime of the funnel” and doesn’t seize all inbound approaches.
Outbound sourcing drove Wintermute’s deal circulation
Proactive outbound sourcing remained the first driver of Wintermute’s pipeline, with the corporate stating it hunted for one of the best builders. “That is complemented by referrals and investor introductions,” the corporate wrote on X.
Whereas monetary infrastructure accounted for almost all of deal circulation, the agency more and more targeted on foundational platforms throughout various sectors.
Outbound efforts accounted for 36% of the offers’ supply, whereas referrals, which have been damaged into Wintermute referrals, investor referrals, and founder referrals which accounted for 31%, 11%, and three% of the offers, respectively.
The corporate said that the most typical fundraising buildings it utilized in 2025 have been fairness, easy agreements for future fairness (SAFE), and token warrants, including that they “align the construction with the founder’s imaginative and prescient for the long-term end result.”
The agency emphasised that it seems for elementary utility able to surviving hype cycles, with the query of whether or not worth accrues to a cap desk or a community handled as secondary to the issue being solved.
Wintermute recognized velocity as an space requiring enchancment, noting, “There’s room to enhance for our early-stage inside evaluate course of.” It additionally wrote, “Quicker responses create a greater expertise for everybody, particularly the founders we’re right here to help. We owe it to them to be responsive and fast in our turnaround instances.”
The complete business turned selective with funding
Wintermute’s stringent strategy displays the state of the bigger funding market, the place traders are actually extra cautious earlier than writing the test.
Crypto enterprise capital funding surged 433% in 2025 to $49.75 billion from $9.33 billion the earlier yr, in keeping with RootData. Nevertheless, the variety of disclosed tasks fell by 42.1%
In line with The Block’s knowledge, digital asset treasuries (DATs) acquired the best investments in 2025. Nevertheless, there was a decline in funding for early-stage startups.
Infrastructure, stablecoins, and controlled choices attracted the majority of investor consideration. Trade-wide enterprise deal counts fell roughly 60% yr over yr.
Wintermute says it is able to make extra investments
Regardless of the selective stance it took in 2025, Wintermute Ventures said that it’s sustaining an energetic funding posture heading into 2026.
The agency, which has backed over 100 firms and protocols since 2020, stated, “We’re at all times keen to attach with founders who discover us first. Whether or not you’re constructing a core protocol or the enterprise infrastructure supporting it, and whether or not you’re elevating a seed or progress spherical, we actively lead funding rounds and wish to hear from you.”
