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Crypto funding stages: 85 rounds, medians $1.85M to $60M

By NAUT Research · · 9 min read

85 Crypto funding stages pre-seed to Series B rounds on NAUT in 2026, with the median and range at each stage. Logos: Augustus, Prime Intellect, Nous Research, Spiko, ORANGE JUICE, Velocity, HIFI, OpenReserve, Noah, Atum, Bundle, PERPTools, Adjacent.

NAUT tracks 85 rounds across the 4 crypto funding stages, pre-seed, seed, Series A and Series B, all dated in 2026 and read on 1 November 2026, and 78 of them carry an amount. The median size rises at every stage: $1.85M at pre-seed, $6.65M at seed, $10M at Series A and $60M at Series B, and the largest step up sits between Series A and Series B.

That is the shape a founder is pricing against and the shape a BD team can read a target by. A team that just closed $2M is 2 people and a prototype. A team that just closed $60M is hiring, buying and signing vendors. Below is each stage defined by the labels NAUT actually records, the median and range per stage, and 13 named rounds to show what each stage looks like in practice.

Data note

  • Source: NAUT's own database of crypto companies and their rounds, read on 1 November 2026. Window: rounds dated from 1 January 2026 to the read.
  • Scope: 85 rounds across 4 stage labels, 78 with a disclosed or inferable amount. Medians and ranges are computed over the 78 with an amount, never over the 85.
  • Left out: 14 rows in the window that carry a venture round label but are not crypto companies at all (no sector tags, non-crypto business summaries), including the window's largest nominal seed and Series B entries. 1 further $30M seed sits on a duplicate company record with no live NAUT page, so it is out of the examples too.
  • Outside checks: of the 13 example rounds below, 8 carry an outside report that NAUT could fetch and quote-check. 5 rest on NAUT's record alone and are marked that way in the table.
  • 1 caveat on a date: NAUT records the ORANGE JUICE seed round on 2026-07-16, and the outside report NAUT checked for it carries 15 July. That row is cited to NAUT only.
  • Written by NAUT Research.

What are the crypto funding stages, and what does each one mean?

NAUT groups crypto startup funding rounds under the label the company or the announcement used, so the stage names below are the labels in the data, with their variants folded in.

Pre-seed. NAUT records this as "Pre Seed" or "Pre-Seed". It is the first outside money, usually before a product earns revenue, and it is small: 9 rounds in 2026, 8 with an amount, running from $300K to $5.5M.

Seed. NAUT records "Seed", "Seed Round" and "Extended Seed". This is where most crypto deal flow sits: 46 of the 85 rounds, more than the other 3 stages put together. An extended seed is a top-up on the same stage rather than a step to Series A, and NAUT keeps it inside seed.

Series A. NAUT records "Series A", "Extended Series A" and "Pre-series A". The company has a product and some traction, and the round is priced on it: 23 rounds, 21 with an amount, $3.5M to $130M.

Series B. NAUT records "Series B" and "Extended Series B". The thinnest tier in the data, 7 rounds, but the biggest cheques: all 7 disclosed an amount, and they total $514.95M, more than any other stage.

Crypto funding stages by median size, pre-seed to Series B

Stage Rounds Median Range Disclosed
Pre-seed 9 $1.85M $300K to $5.5M $17.75M
Seed 46 $6.65M $1M to $40M $351.07M
Series A 23 $10M $3.5M to $130M $439M
Series B 7 $60M $6.35M to $180M $514.95M

Ranked by median round size, smallest first. "Disclosed" is the sum of the amounts at that stage, over the rounds that carry one: 8 of the 9 pre-seed rounds, 42 of the 46 seeds, 21 of the 23 Series A and all 7 Series B. 2 things a founder should take from this table. First, the pre-seed to seed step is a 3.6x jump in the median and the seed to Series A step is only 1.5x, so a seed round and a small Series A can land close to each other on size. Second, the Series A to Series B step is 6x on the median, the widest gap in the data, which is where the round stops being a bet on a team and starts being a bet on numbers.

The ranges matter as much as the medians, because they overlap heavily. A $3.5M Series A sits below the median seed round. A $40M seed sits above the median Series A and above 4 of the 7 Series B rounds. The stage label on an announcement tells you less about the cheque than the amount does.

Which rounds show each of the crypto funding stages, and who led them?

13 rounds from NAUT's record, 3 or 4 per stage, largest first within each stage. "Lead" is NAUT's own record of the lead investor, so "none on record" means NAUT holds no lead for that row rather than that the round had no lead. "Report" says whether an outside report backs the row; the reports themselves are listed under Sources. NAUT's dates for these rounds run from 2026-03-12 to 2026-10-07.

Stage Company Amount Lead Report
Pre-seed $5.5M none on record confirmed
Pre-seed $3M none on record NAUT only
Pre-seed $2.5M none on record NAUT only
Seed $40M none on record NAUT only
Seed $25M none on record confirmed
Seed $16M none on record confirmed
Seed $13.5M confirmed
Series A $130M none on record NAUT only
Series A $38M , confirmed
Series A $37M confirmed
Series B $180M none on record NAUT only
Series B $90M confirmed
Series B $90M confirmed

5 of these 13 rounds carry a lead on NAUT's row. For the rest, the lead sits in the announcement rather than in NAUT's lead field: the outside report NAUT read for the OpenReserve seed, for example, names a lead that NAUT's row does not yet carry. Treat a "none on record" lead as a gap in the record and check the company's own announcement before you write to anyone.

A few of these rounds carry the stage label and the sector together. Noah and Velocity are both tagged Stablecoins on NAUT, 1 at seed and 1 at Series A, $16M against $38M. Prime Intellect and Nous Research are both tagged Infrastructure and DePIN, $130M at Series A against $90M at Series B, which is the overlap in plain sight.

How much did each example round raise?

Amount raised, the 13 example rounds
  1. Augustus$180M
  2. Prime Intellect$130M
  3. Nous Research$90M
  4. Spiko$90M
  5. ORANGE JUICE$40M
  6. Velocity$38M
  7. HIFI$37M
  8. OpenReserve$25M
  9. Noah$16M
  10. Atum$13.5M
  11. Bundle$5.5M
  12. PERPTools$3M
  13. Adjacent$2.5M

The 3 Series B rounds and the top Series A alone account for $490M of the $670.5M in the chart, so 73 percent of the chart's dollars sit behind 4 names.

What this tells a BD team

  • Qualify on the amount rather than on the label. A $3.5M Series A buys less than a $13.5M seed, and both appear in the same 2026 window on NAUT.
  • Seed is where the volume is: 46 of the 85 rounds. If your product sells to teams of 5 to 20, that is your list, and the median budget behind it is $6.65M.
  • Series B is where the vendor spend is: 7 rounds, $514.95M disclosed, a $60M median. Small list, short cycle to a real budget.
  • Pre-seed teams at a $1.85M median are rarely buying software. Track them for the next round and pitch them later.
  • Where NAUT's lead field is blank, the deal's lead is still findable in the announcement, then matchable to a NAUT fund page for the partner who sits on it.
How a BD team can work the stages
  1. Pick the stage that matches your priceSeries B teams disclosed $514.95M across 7 rounds; seed teams are 46 rounds at a $6.65M median.
  2. Sort by amount, never by labelA $40M seed outranks 4 of the 7 Series B rounds on cash in the bank.
  3. Open the company pageEach company on NAUT lists its team, so Spiko at $90M gives you names to write to.
  4. Go through the leadRobot Ventures led Nous Research's $90M Series B, and a fund page gives you a warm route in.

What this tells a founder raising

  • Price against the median, then against the range. Pre-seed $1.85M, seed $6.65M, Series A $10M, Series B $60M, with the overlaps named above.
  • The hardest step to price is Series A to Series B, a 6x move in the median. If you are raising a Series B on Series A numbers, the gap is where it will show.
  • Crypto Series B funding is the narrowest door in the data: 7 rounds in 10 months against 46 seeds. Plan the raise around a short list of funds that actually write that cheque.
  • 7 of the 85 rounds disclosed no amount at all, so an undisclosed round is normal on its own.
  • Build the investor list from the stage rather than from a logo wall: Variant led a $13.5M seed, Left Lane Capital a $37M Series A and New Enterprise Associates (NEA) a $90M Series B. Different stages, different partners.
How a founder can use the stage medians
  1. Place your roundCompare your ask with the stage median: $1.85M, $6.65M, $10M, $60M.
  2. List funds that led at your stageFirstMark co-led a $38M Series A; Robot Ventures led a $90M Series B.
  3. Check the fund wrote the cheque beforeA NAUT fund page shows its rounds with the round type and the amount.
  4. Reach the partner, not the inboxNAUT lists the people at each fund and which channels it holds for them.

How to reach the decision makers

Every company and fund named here has a NAUT page, and each page lists the people on the team with their role and the channels NAUT holds on file. For a BD team the useful pairing is the company page for the operator who owns the budget and the fund page for the partner who can make the introduction. Augustus at $180M, Prime Intellect at $130M and HIFI at $37M are all live company pages; Dragonfly, FirstMark and Variant are the fund side of the same rounds.

Related reading on NAUT: Crypto seed funding: 13 October rounds, $98.9M, median $5.0M and How to find crypto investors by round size: 28 funds, 4 steps.

Can you pull this data through the NAUT API?

Yes. The round types, amounts and announcement dates behind this article sit on NAUT's fund and company records, so GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors/variant with the header Authorization: Bearer $NAUT_KEY returns Variant's portfolio with each row's company, round type, amount in USD, announcement date and whether the fund led, which is the same stage-and-size data in machine-readable form. A single company works the same way with GET https://api.naut.so/v1/projects/spiko-finance, and each data call costs 5 credits against your plan (docs, pricing). Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn for the people on those pages unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so you can start a 7-day trial and reveal them as you work the list.

Crypto funding stages FAQ

What are the stages of crypto startup funding?

The 4 venture stages NAUT records for crypto companies are pre-seed, seed, Series A and Series B, and across 85 rounds dated in 2026 and read on 1 November 2026 their medians were $1.85M, $6.65M, $10M and $60M. NAUT folds the variants into the same stage, so "Extended Seed" counts as seed and "Pre-series A" counts as Series A.

What is the crypto seed round size in 2026?

On NAUT's record, the median crypto seed round in 2026 was $6.65M, across 42 seed rounds with a disclosed amount out of 46 tracked, running from $1M to $40M. The largest was ORANGE JUICE at $40M and a mid-pack example is Atum at $13.5M, led by Variant.

Which crypto funding stage shows the biggest jump in size?

Series A to Series B. The median moves from $10M to $60M, a 6x step, the widest of the 3 gaps in NAUT's 2026 data, against 3.6x from pre-seed to seed and 1.5x from seed to Series A.

Do the stage ranges overlap?

Heavily. NAUT's 2026 rounds show a $40M seed sitting above the $10M Series A median and above 4 of the 7 Series B rounds, while a $3.5M Series A sits below the $6.65M seed median. Read the amount before the label.

Where can I find the teams and investors behind these rounds, and their contact channels?

On NAUT. All 13 example rounds in this article link to a live NAUT page for the company, and the 6 investors named link to a NAUT page with their team and their recorded rounds, or you can pull the same records through the API with GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors/<fund-slug>. Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn for those people unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial if you need the channels as well as the names.

Sources

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