Has ICO Cryptocapital Exceeded Early Stage Venture Capital Funding? Yes.

VC-ICOsEver since the Bancor and Gnosis ICOs kicked the door open on creativity and boldness in ICO campaigns, the appetite for ICOs has been steadily increasing during the month of June and continuing into early July.

I sensed that June was a pivotal month that may be setting the tone for the next months to come. So, I spent a good part of the past several days trying to tally-up exactlyhow much what raised during that month, and by whom.

I was surprised (and you should be appalled) to find out that many ICOs were completed, yet the amount raised were not visible on their ICO sites.

To sum it up, 36 companies raised $601.1M in June 2017 alone.

ICOs June 2017
Name SYMBOL Amount Raised Month Notes
Bancor BNT $153,000,000 June
Status SNT $95,000,000 June
TenX TM-TENX $80,000,000 June
Civic CVC $33,000,000 June
Polybius PLBT $31,645,000 June
SONM Network SPT $31,000,000 June
FunFair FUN $26,000,000 June
Aeternity XAE $24,000,000 June
Omise GO OMG $19,000,000 June Presale only
Cofoundit CFI $14,800,000 June
ATB Coin ATB $14,000,000 June
PrimalBase PBT $7,750,000 June
adChain ADT $7,700,000 June
Patientory PTOY $7,200,000 June
Zrcoin ZRC $7,070,000 June
Populous PPT $6,000,000 June Presale only
Air XID $5,246,000 June
DCorp DRP $5,049,000 June
Ecobit TM-ECOBIT $5,000,000 June
Crypviser CVC $3,769,000 June
Wagerr WGR $3,175,000 June
Monaco MCO $3,000,000 June
iDice ICE $2,500,000 June
FootballCoin XFC $2,250,000 June
NVO NOV $2,000,000 June
Octanox OTX $1,785,000 June
BlockPool BPL $1,751,444 June
Ethereum.link LNK $1,500,000 June
MaskNetwork MSK $1,275,000 June
SilverCoin SVC $1,150,000 June
21 Million 21M $1,000,000 June estimate
Adel ADL $1,000,000 June
Internet of Coins HYBRID $1,000,000 June
Minexcoin MNC $800,000 June
Voise VSM $700,000 June
BidLend BLC $0 June
$601,115,444
Source: William Mougayar (2017)

Why is this significant?

I went back and looked at how much traditional venture capital goes into the angel/seed stage. Angel + Seed are an apt comparison because many of these ICO’s are at that stage, and no further. After triangulating from various sources, (mostly PWC’s Money Tree and the Crunchbase Global Venture Capital Report) the total amount of venture capital in Internet related companies stands at $20 Billion per year, ⅓ of which typically goes to Angel/Seed stage rounds. On a monthly basis, that number is $550 Million.Why is this significant?

There you have it. ICO funding has now exceeded Venture funding.

And we have more than 1 ICO per day (which wasn't the case in May 2017).

Will this become a sustainable trend remains to be seen. All we need is to stay above the $550 Million mark on a monthly basis. Already, we have had two big ICOs in July (Tezos and EOS) with a combined $386 Million.

In early February, I predicted that 1,000 ICOs would raise $1 Billion by the end of 2017. $1 Billion sounded outrageous at that time, but we have already eclipsed it on a YTD basis.

I wouldn't be surprised if we ended the year with 1,000 ICOs.