Wintermute Ventures researched around 600 companies last year, but only funded 4% of them. Algorithmic trading firm Wintermute's venture arm completed 23 deals in 2025, but only 20% of the companies it reviewed reached adequate due diligence and fewer were able to secure investment.
Evgeny Gayvoy, the company's founder and CEO, sees this selectivity as evidence of how much the company has grown since the peak of industry speculation.
“I am very pleased with how far we have come from the ‘spray and pray’ days of 2021-2022 to a 4% acceptance rate,” Gavoy said. I wrote to X.
The disclosure, posted on Thursday, January 8, 2026, offered a glimpse into how the crypto venture makes trading decisions.
Wintermute Ventures The company claimed to have tracked nearly every opportunity that has come to its desk since February 2025, but the company acknowledged that the data is “not perfect at the top of the funnel” and does not capture all inbound approaches.
Outbound sourcing drives Wintermute’s deal flow
The main driver of Wintermute's pipeline continues to be aggressive outbound sourcing, and the company says it was looking for the best builders. “This will be complemented by referrals and investor introductions,” the company writes of X.
While financial infrastructure accounts for a large portion of deal flow, the company is increasingly focused on foundational platforms across diverse sectors.
Outbound efforts accounted for 36% of deal sources, and referrals were categorized into Wintermute referrals, investor referrals, and founder referrals, which accounted for 31%, 11%, and 3% of deals, respectively.
The company said the most common financing structures it used in 2025 were equity, simple agreements for future equity (SAFE), and token warrants, adding that they “align the structure with the founders' vision for long-term outcomes.”
The company emphasized that it is looking for fundamental utility that can survive the hype cycle, with the question of whether value accrues to the cap table or to the network, which is treated as secondary to problem-solving.
Wintermute identified velocity as an area for improvement and noted that “early internal review processes have room for improvement.” They also wrote, “A faster response creates a better experience for everyone, especially the founders we are here to support. We owe it to them to respond quickly within their response time.”
The entire industry has become more selective with its funds.
Wintermute's strict approach reflects conditions in the larger investment market, where investors are becoming more cautious before writing checks.
According to , crypto venture capital funding rose 433% to $49.75 billion in 2025 from $9.33 billion the previous year. route data. However, the number of published projects decreased by 42.1%.
According to block dataDigital Asset Treasury (DAT) received the most investment in 2025. However, funding for early-stage startups has declined.
Infrastructure, stablecoins and regulated products attracted investor attention. The number of venture deals in the industry as a whole decreased by about 60% from the previous year.
Wintermute announces readiness to make further investments
Despite taking a selective stance in 2025, Wintermute Ventures said it will maintain an aggressive investment stance into 2026.
The company, which has backed over 100 companies and protocols since 2020, said: “We always want to connect with the founders who found us in the first place. Whether we're building a core protocol, building the enterprise infrastructure to support it, or raising seed or growth rounds, we're actively leading investment rounds and would love to hear from you.”
