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Crypto VC portfolio diversification: 3 steps, 20 sectors

By NAUT Research · · 10 min read

20 Portfolio diversification sector tags across the 58 companies 1 crypto fund backs, 21 of them Infrastructure. Logos: Pantera Capital, Decentralized Social (prev. Bitclout), Helium, Ethena, Mina Protocol, Sentient, Starknet / Starkware, Morpho, ThunderCore, Oasis Network, meanwhile.

Crypto VC portfolio diversification is 3 measurements on 1 list: how many companies the fund really backs, how those companies split across sector tags, and how wide the round sizes and stages run. NAUT's record for Pantera Capital, read on 9 November 2026, holds 58 live backed companies across 20 sector tags, with 21 of them (36%) carrying the Infrastructure tag and 38 of them (66%) sitting inside its top 3 tags.

Data note. Every count here was computed from NAUT's own database on 9 November 2026, read-only. A company is counted when its row is live, published and not merged into another row, which gives 58 companies and 66 round records where NAUT names Pantera Capital as a backer. NAUT's stored portfolio number on the fund row counts rows that are no longer live, so this article uses the 58 live rows instead. Round sizes and stages are the amount and round type NAUT stores against each round. 12 of the 58 companies had their biggest round checked against an outside source, and 8 of those 12 cleared the bar used here, which is either the quoted line found on the page or a confirmed amount plus a second source. The other 46 companies were not put through that check. NAUT Research wrote it, and the places where NAUT's record disagrees with a source are named below rather than tidied away.

How do you measure crypto VC portfolio diversification in 3 steps?

Count the live rows, map the sector tags, then read the money. Each step answers a different question a deal maker has, and each one can be run on any fund page on NAUT in a few minutes.

  • Step 1, the real count. A fund page's stored portfolio number and the number of live company rows behind it can differ, and the live rows are what you can actually open and contact.
  • Step 2, the sector map. Sector concentration is the share of the companies sitting in the fund's largest tag, plus the share sitting in its top 3 tags. Overlap matters: a company carrying 4 tags inflates every tag it touches.
  • Step 3, the money. Round size and stage tell you which cheque the fund writes. A median gives you the middle of the range, and the stage labels tell you where in a company's life the fund tends to arrive.
The 3-step diversification check
  1. Count the live rowsFor Pantera Capital that is 58 live company rows carrying 66 round records.
  2. Map the sector tags20 tags, 21 companies in Infrastructure (36%), 38 inside the top 3 tags (66%).
  3. Read the moneyMedian biggest round $12.5M across the 55 companies that disclose an amount, from $2M to $200M.

Step 1: how many companies does the fund actually back?

58, on NAUT's record read on 9 November 2026. That is the count of company rows that are live, published and not merged, and it is the number every share in this article divides by.

Those 58 companies carry 66 round records between them, so 51 companies have 1 round on NAUT's record and 7 have more: Starknet / Starkware with 3, and Nomina (prev. Omni Network), Globe Derivative Exchange, Audius, NEAR Protocol, Ampleforth and Avantis with 2 each. Where a company has more than 1 round, the step 3 figures below use its largest disclosed round, so no company is counted twice.

The stored portfolio figure on the fund row counts rows that are no longer live, which is why a crypto fund portfolio should be counted from the company rows rather than read off the summary field. The gap is the first thing worth checking on any fund page: if the stored number is the one you plan a campaign around, you will build a target list you cannot open.

Step 2: what does crypto VC portfolio diversification look like by sector?

Spread across 20 tags, with 1 tag holding more than a third of the list. 51 of the 58 companies carry at least 1 sector tag on NAUT, and the table below ranks every tag by how many of those companies carry it. Share is the share of all 58 companies, the last column is the largest disclosed round in that tag, and the DEX row is NAUT's "DEX (Decentralized Exchange)" tag.

Sector tag Companies Share Biggest round
Infrastructure 21 36% , $75M
DeFi 18 31% , $100M
L1/2/3 13 22% , $200M
Privacy 6 10% , $92M
AI 5 9% , $85M
DePIN 4 7% , $200M
Gaming 4 7% , $13M
Tools 3 5% , $18M
Stablecoins 2 3% , $100M
Money Market 2 3% , $3.7M
DEX 2 3% , $11.5M
Insurance 1 2% , $37.5M
Store of Value 1 2% , $37.5M
DeFAI 1 2% , $8M
SocialFi 1 2% , $200M
GambleFi 1 2% , $5M
Launchpad 1 2% , amount undisclosed
Mining 1 2% , $10.2M
Payment 1 2% , $20M
Security 1 2% , amount undisclosed

The shares add past 100% because 25 of the 58 companies carry more than 1 tag: 17 carry 2 tags, 4 carry 3, 3 carry 4 and NEAR Protocol carries 5. That overlap is where a naive sector read goes wrong, so it is worth measuring directly. 6 companies carry both Infrastructure and DeFi, 6 carry both DeFi and L1/2/3, 4 carry both Infrastructure and L1/2/3, and 2 carry all 3 of the top tags. Taking each company once, the top 3 tags together cover 38 of the 58 companies, which is 66%.

Here is who sits in the 8 tags that hold 3 companies or more, so a target list can be lifted straight off it. Inside each tag the companies are ordered by their largest disclosed round, largest first, and the 2 companies that disclose no amount come last.

7 of the 58 companies carry no sector tag at all on NAUT, so they sit outside this map and NAUT's sector filter never returns them: Fission Labs, Evernorth, Nomina (prev. Omni Network), Parallel Finance, Globe Derivative Exchange, bloXroute and Defx. The remaining 26 companies carry exactly 1 tag each. A tag count of 12 out of the 20 tags sits on 2 companies or fewer, which is the long tail of crypto VC sectors: Morph is the whole Payment line, Virtue Poker the whole GambleFi line.

Step 3: how wide do the round sizes and stages run?

From $2M to $200M, with a median of $12.5M. 55 of the 58 companies have a disclosed amount on their largest round, and those 55 rounds add to $1.495B on NAUT's record. 3 companies have a round record with no amount against it: Bounce Finance, Evernorth and Zircuit.

Stage is the second half of the money read, taken from the round type NAUT stores on each company's largest round. Share is again the share of all 58 companies, and the last row holds every generic or non-standard label.

Stage on NAUT Companies Share What it means
Seed or pre-seed 17 29% 16 seed rounds and 1 pre-seed, the clearest early-stage door
Series A 9 16% A second cheque point, 5 stored as Series A and 4 as Series A Round
Series B 1 2% , $75M
Series D 1 2% , $200M
Non-standard 30 52% No stage to read: ask the fund which stage it was

The 30 in the last row break down as 13 stored as Funding Round, 6 as Strategic Round, 5 as Private Round, and 1 each as Equity Round, Undisclosed, Otc Purchase, PIPE, Early Access Round and BasedApp Private Round. Over half the portfolio therefore carries no readable stage, which is the single biggest gap in reading a fund's stage spread from stored data.

NAUT's lead flag is set on 1 of the 66 round records, the $10M Series A for Fission Labs announced on 15 October 2026. That flag is NAUT's record of who led rather than a full account of the market: the source behind the $85M seed round for Sentient names Pantera as a co-lead alongside Founders Fund, and NAUT's row for it carries no lead flag. Treat the flag as a floor and ask the fund which rounds it led.

Which companies took the 10 biggest rounds?

The 10 below are ranked by the amount NAUT records for each company's largest round. The round type carries the announcement year on NAUT's record beside it, and the last column says what an outside source check returned for that round. Each company's sector tags are in the lists above.

Amount Company Round type Source check
$200M Funding Round, 2021 Amount confirmed, second source
$200M Series D, 2022 Day of announcement disagreed
$100M Private Round, 2025 Quote not found on the page fetched
$92M Funding Round, 2022 Quote found on the page
$85M Seed Round, 2024 Amount confirmed, second source
$75M Series B, 2021 Amount confirmed, second source
$50M Strategic Round, 2024 Quote found on the page
$50M Funding Round, 2019 Day of announcement disagreed
$45M Funding Round, 2018 Amount confirmed, second source
$37.5M Undisclosed, 2026 Quote found on the page

2 of those 10 rows disagree with the source at the level of the day: NAUT dates the Helium Series D 1 day later, and the ThunderCore round 8 days earlier, than the reports read on 9 November 2026. Both sources agree with NAUT on the year and the amount, so the years above stand and the exact days are left out. A third row, the $37M Series A for Sahara AI, carries no announcement date at all on NAUT while its source gives one, so no date for it appears here.

Where a quote was found, it came off the company's or the publisher's own page. Mina Protocol's own blog post carries the line "We are pleased to have worked with the Mina ecosystem and world-class funds on this $92M raise", and the report on meanwhile reads "Meanwhile raises $37.5M from investors including Bain Capital Crypto to expand its Bitcoin-denominated life insurance offerings for international clients."

Largest round per company, the 10 biggest of the 55 that disclose an amount
  1. Decentralized Social (prev. Bitclout)$200M
  2. Helium$200M
  3. Ethena$100M
  4. Mina Protocol$92M
  5. Sentient$85M
  6. Starknet / Starkware$75M
  7. Morpho$50M
  8. ThunderCore$50M
  9. Oasis Network$45M
  10. meanwhile$37.5M

The top 2 rounds, $200M each, are 27% of the $1.495B that the 55 disclosed rounds add to, so the size distribution is far more concentrated than the sector distribution. The 3 companies with no amount on record stay out of the chart.

What crypto VC portfolio diversification tells a BD team

A diversification read is a target list with a sort order already applied. Here is what the 58 rows give a team selling into them.

  • The Infrastructure tag is the widest single pool at 21 companies, and it is where a tool, an audit or a node service has the most doors to knock on.
  • The 25 companies carrying 2 or more tags are the cross-sell rows: a pitch written for DeFi also lands on the 6 companies tagged both Infrastructure and DeFi.
  • The 7 companies with no tag will never show up in a sector filter, so a filter-only list misses 12% of the portfolio.
  • The median largest round of $12.5M sets the budget conversation. 17 companies' largest round is seed or pre-seed, which usually means a small team and a short approval chain.
  • Every one of the 58 companies has a NAUT page with its team and the channels NAUT holds for each person, so the list ends in a name rather than a company.
How a BD team works these 58 rows
  1. Start in the biggest tag21 of the 58 companies carry the Infrastructure tag, the widest single pool on the list.
  2. Add the overlap rows25 companies carry 2 or more tags, so 1 pitch can land in 2 categories at once.
  3. Pick up the 7 untagged rows7 companies carry no sector tag, so a sector filter never returns them.
  4. Size the cheque firstThe median largest round is $12.5M across the 55 companies that disclose an amount.
  5. Open the page, take the nameEach of the 58 companies has a NAUT page listing its team and the channels on file.

What it tells a founder raising

The same 3 steps read differently when you are the one asking for money. Sector concentration tells you whether you are the 21st company in a tag or the 1st.

  • The crowded tags are Infrastructure (21), DeFi (18) and L1/2/3 (13). Expect the fund to have an opinion already, and expect a portfolio conflict question.
  • The thin tags are the 12 that hold 2 companies or fewer, from Payment to Security. Thin can mean open, and it can mean the fund has passed on that sector before, so ask.
  • Stage: 17 of the 58 companies' largest round is seed or pre-seed and 9 is a Series A, with 1 Series B and 1 Series D on record.
  • Cheque size runs from $2M to $200M with a median of $12.5M, so a $3M ask and a $90M ask are both inside the range the record shows.
  • NAUT's lead flag sits on 1 of 66 rounds, so do not read the record as a count of how often this fund leads. Ask, and ask a portfolio founder too.
How a founder reads 1 fund before the first call
  1. Find your tagInfrastructure holds 21 of the 58 companies, Payment and Security 1 each.
  2. Check the conflict6 companies carry both Infrastructure and DeFi, so an adjacent bet may already be on the books.
  3. Match your stage17 companies' largest round is seed or pre-seed, 9 a Series A, 1 a Series B, 1 a Series D.
  4. Set your ask inside the range$2M at the bottom, $200M at the top, median $12.5M.
  5. Get the warm introOpen any of the 58 portfolio pages on NAUT and work through its team.

Related reading on NAUT: Pantera Capital portfolio: 58 companies, average round $24.7M and How to research a VC fund: 6 checks, 23 rounds, 27 partners.

Can you pull this data through the NAUT API?

Yes, in 1 call. GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors/pantera-capital with an Authorization: Bearer $NAUT_KEY header returns the fund with its team and its portfolio, and each portfolio row carries the company, roundType, amountUsd, announceDate and isLead fields that every count in this article was computed from; a data call costs 5 credits on the plans at naut.so/pricing, and the parameters are documented at naut.so/docs/api. To go the other way and list funds by portfolio size, GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors?sort=portfolio is the documented call. Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn for the people on those 58 company pages unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial when you need the channel rather than the company.

Crypto VC portfolio diversification FAQ

How diversified is a crypto VC portfolio in practice?

On the 1 fund measured here, 1 tag holds more than a third of the list. NAUT's record for Pantera Capital on 9 November 2026 holds 58 live backed companies across 20 sector tags, with 21 (36%) tagged Infrastructure, 18 (31%) DeFi and 13 (22%) L1/2/3, and 38 of the 58 (66%) sitting inside those top 3 tags once each company is counted once.

How do I measure sector concentration in a crypto fund portfolio?

Count the fund's live company rows, read the sector tags on each row, then divide. On NAUT that is 58 rows for this fund, 51 of which carry at least 1 tag, giving a largest-tag share of 36% and a top-3 share of 66%, and the 7 rows with no tag are reported separately rather than folded into a sector.

What round size does this fund write?

The median largest round across the 55 of 58 companies that disclose an amount is $12.5M, and the range runs from $2M to $200M, with the 2 largest at $200M each going to Decentralized Social (prev. Bitclout) and Helium. The 55 disclosed rounds add to $1.495B on NAUT's record read on 9 November 2026.

Does the stored portfolio count match the live company rows?

No, and that gap is step 1 for a reason. The portfolio number stored on this fund's row counts company rows that are no longer live, so this article counted the 58 live, published, unmerged rows instead, and those 58 rows carry 66 round records.

Where can I find these 58 companies and the people to contact at them?

On NAUT. Each of the 58 companies has its own page with its sector tags, its round record and the people NAUT names on the team, and the whole set comes back in 1 API call, GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors/pantera-capital. Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn for those people unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial if you need the channel as well as the name.

Sources

  • NAUT's own database, read on 9 November 2026, read-only: the fund row for Pantera Capital, the 66 round records naming it as a backer, and the 58 live company rows behind them with their sector tags, round types and amounts. Every count, share and median above was computed from those rows at that time.
  • Outside reports for 12 of the 58 companies' largest rounds, read on 9 November 2026. The 8 that cleared the bar used here: theblock.co for Decentralized Social (prev. Bitclout), minaprotocol.com for Mina Protocol, theblock.co for Sentient and Starknet / Starkware and Morpho, venturebeat.com for Oasis Network, thesaasnews.com for meanwhile, and dabafinance.com with forbes.com for the $30M Series A for Jambo.
  • The 4 rounds whose check did not clear that bar, named above: Helium, ThunderCore and Sahara AI on the announcement date, and Ethena where the quoted line was not found on the page fetched. The amounts for all 4 are NAUT's stored record.
  • The other 46 of the 58 companies were not put through an outside source check for this article, so their amounts, round types and dates rest on NAUT's record alone.

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