Report: Q1 and Q2 bitcoin venture capital investment already surpasses all of 2013

In a new report on CoinDesk, bitcoin-focused venture capital investment in the first half of 2014 has blown past total investment in 2013 by more than $27 million. Last year, startups like Coinbase and BitPay were still in early seed rounds, with total investment hitting about $88 million. Since January, however, second-round investments in those companies, as well as new funding for Circle, Kraken and other ventures, has resulted in over $113 million in new VC cash entering the bitcoin ecosystem. The growth increase is already at 29%, and many suspect that’s just the start as mainstream investors warm up to cryptocurrency innovations.

An even more stark illustration of the rapid growth of bitcoin investment levels are the 2012 numbers. An estimated $2.1 million was spent on seed-round funding in bitcoin projects that year. That’s an increase of 5,200% in VC funding in a very short time.

According to the CoinDesk report, much of this year’s growth is attributable to tech startup accelerator programs, such as 500 Startups.

The 500 Startups investments were much smaller and earlier stage bets, at about $100,000 each, compared to the seven-figure rounds the other investors participated in. … Venture funds were most attracted to exchange businesses in terms of the number of investments made. Exchanges attracted seven investments worth about $21m in total. Financial services and payment processors were the next most popular investment categories, by number of investments made.

Payment processors raised the largest amount of money in the first half of this year, with Circle, BitPay and Xapo accounting for $67 million in VC funding. Bitcoin mining hardware maker BitFury also secured $20 million, while Chinese cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin brought in another $10 million.