CMT Digital locks down $136m fund for crypto startups

CMT Digital now commands a $136 million investment vehicle, leveraging its trading heritage to identify and scale promising infrastructure and DeFi protocols.

In a press release dated Nov. 5, the Chicago-based crypto venture firm CMT Digital announced the final close of its fourth investment vehicle, Fund IV, securing a total of $136 million.

The firm, an offshoot of the CMT Group, said the capital will be directed toward early-stage startups building foundational infrastructure and decentralized finance protocols. Partner Sam Hallene noted the fund attracted a mix of family offices and institutional limited partners, affirming continued, albeit more discerning, investor appetite for digital asset ventures.

“As the world continues to move on chain, we believe the most transformative ideas are still ahead. With fresh capital, trusted partners, and a proven platform, we’re ready to help the next generation of visionaries build,” Hallene said.

Investing through winters and bull markets

CMT Group’s new fund extends a strategy honed over nearly a decade, with the VC first allocating capital to the digital asset space in 2016. The firm has since navigated multiple boom-and-bust periods, building a portfolio of over 200 investments.

According to the press release, the firm’s selection process is informed by its parent company’s 25-year history as a quantitative trading firm, leveraging in-house research and market expertise to identify infrastructure the team believes can outlive short-term hype.

CMT Group’s inaugural fund focused on establishing access, backing foundational on-ramps such as Coinbase and BitGo. Fund II shifted to building core on-chain infrastructure, investing in the data and financial rails powering the ecosystem, in companies such as Consensys and dYdX.

The third fund marked a strategic pivot towards expanding utility, moving beyond pure finance to support projects in payments and consumer applications, such as Ethena and the Axie Infinity creator, Sky Mavis. This latest fund, Fund IV, is aimed at what the firm calls “re-architecting finance,” backing startups that are building blockchain-native infrastructure for global markets.

Despite the firm’s momentum, CMT’s capital raise closed against one of the most subdued venture backdrops in years. According to Galaxy Digital’s Q2 2025 report, crypto startups secured just $1.97 billion in venture funding across 378 deals, a 59% decline from the previous quarter.

The total made Q2 the second-weakest period for crypto VC activity since late 2020. Even after adjusting for a one-off $2 billion sovereign-linked Binance investment earlier in the year, venture allocations remain sharply below prior cycles. By comparison, Q1 2022 alone saw more than $13 billion in fresh capital flow into the sector.