Coinbase Ventures reveals investment portfolio percentages by category

Coinbase Ventures associate Connor Dempsey published a breakdown of the firm’s portfolio in 2021, revealing that decentralized finance (DeFi) was tied with centralized finance as the top category. 

Coinbase Ventures is the venture capital arm of crypto exchange giant Coinbase. According to Dempsey’s post, the firm made just under 150 new deals in 2021, bringing the total companies in its portfolio to 250.

Both DeFi and “CeFi” accounted for around 23% of the total. Prominent recent investments in each category include the firm’s backing of DeFi wallet startup DeBank and the financial advisor-focused crypto investment platform Onramp Invest, respectively. 

The next biggest category was what the firm calls “protocols and web3 infrastructure,” which represented 20%. That was followed by “non-fungible token(NFT)/metaverse” investments, with 17%. One prominent NFT startup the venture firm has backed recently is the music platform Royal. Meanwhile, Coinbase is planning to launch its own NFT marketplace. 

Investments in platform and developer tools — for example, crypto tax reporting platform CoinTracker  —accounted for 15% of Coinbase Ventures’ — portfolio in 2021. The remaining 2% went to uncategorized recipients.