Source: iStock/siriwat nakha

When your business is raising the funds it needs to operate, you don’t really ask whether it’s coming from traditional or modern sources. Although initial coin offerings (ICOs) are the new way of raising capital for blockchain-based startups, more traditional ways such as venture capital (VC) are not completely out of the picture either.

In 2018, at least USD 1.3 billion has been invested in blockchain globally through venture capital, according to data from TechCrunch. Although it is only May, this amount has already surpassed the total raised in 2017. ICOs were purposely excluded, including those that had traditional VCs participate, as the focus was on venture deals instead: angel, seed, convertible notes, Series A, Series B and so on.

One of the latest traditionally-funded companies is Circle, a Goldman Sachs-backed cryptocurrency startup, having raised USD 110 million in a now-closed fundraising round led by mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain. It is now valued at more than USD 1 billion in its most recent venture capital round, joining a club that until now consisted only of Coinbase, an American cryptocurrency exchange, and Robinhood, a trading app.

Although the amount raised by Circle has significantly bumped the number up in year-to-date totals, other large funding rounds throughout 2018 also helped: from Orbs, a blockchain for consumer apps, which raised USD 118 million, Ledger, a cryptocurrency hardware wallet, raising USD 75 million, and Project Shivom, a blockchain enabled digital genome repository, raising USD 32 million, among many others.

Although cryptocurrency prices are fluctuating and showing no signs of reaching their December 2017 heights, investors both traditional and modern are obviously not discouraged from showing their faith in blockchain as a technology.