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Wintermute Ventures reviewed approximately 600 companies last year and funded only 4% of them. The venture arm of algorithmic trading firm Wintermute completed 23 deals in 2025, with only 20% of the companies that were reviewed reaching proper due diligence and fewer securing investment.
The firm’s founder and chief executive officer, Evgeny Gaevoy, sees the selectivity as evidence of how far the company has grown since the industry’s speculative peak.
“Pretty stoked how far we went from 2021-2022 days of ‘Spray and Pray’ to 4% acceptance rate,” Gaevoy wrote on X.
The disclosure, posted on Thursday, January 8, 2026, offered a glimpse into the deal-making machinery of a crypto venture firm.
Wintermute Ventures claimed that it tracked nearly every opportunity that crossed its desk since February 2025, though the firm acknowledged its data “isn’t perfect at the top of the funnel” and does not capture all inbound approaches.
Outbound sourcing drove Wintermute’s deal flow
Proactive outbound sourcing remained the primary driver of Wintermute’s pipeline, with the company stating it hunted for the best builders. “This is complemented by referrals and investor introductions,” the company wrote on X.
While financial infrastructure accounted for the majority of deal flow, the firm increasingly focused on foundational platforms across diverse sectors.
Outbound efforts accounted for 36% of the deals’ source, while referrals, which were broken into Wintermute referrals, investor referrals, and founder referrals which accounted for 31%, 11%, and 3% of the deals, respectively.
The company stated that the most common fundraising structures it used in 2025 were equity, simple agreements for future equity (SAFE), and token warrants, adding that they “align the structure with the founder’s vision for the long-term outcome.”
The firm emphasized that it looks for fundamental utility capable of surviving hype cycles, with the question of whether value accrues to a cap table or a network treated as secondary to the problem being solved.
Wintermute identified velocity as an area requiring improvement, noting, “There’s room to improve for our early-stage internal review process.” It also wrote, “Faster responses create a better experience for everyone, especially the founders we’re here to support. We owe it to them to be responsive and quick in our turnaround times.”
The entire industry became selective with funding
Wintermute’s stringent approach reflects the state of the larger investment market, where investors are now more cautious before writing the check.
Crypto venture capital funding surged 433% in 2025 to $49.75 billion from $9.33 billion the previous year, according to RootData. However, the number of disclosed projects fell by 42.1%
According to The Block’s data, digital asset treasuries (DATs) received the highest investments in 2025. However, there was a decline in funding for early-stage startups.
Infrastructure, stablecoins, and regulated offerings attracted the bulk of investor attention. Industry-wide venture deal counts fell roughly 60% year over year.
Wintermute says it is ready to make more investments
Despite the selective stance it took in 2025, Wintermute Ventures stated that it is maintaining an active investment posture heading into 2026.
The firm, which has backed over 100 companies and protocols since 2020, said, “We are always eager to connect with founders who find us first. Whether you’re building a core protocol or the enterprise infrastructure supporting it, and whether you’re raising a seed or growth round, we actively lead investment rounds and want to hear from you.”
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