ConsenSys, an Ethereum application and infrastructure builder based in New York, announced on Tuesday that it raised $450 million in its Series D funding round. The financing seed gives the blockchain company a valuation of $7 billion.
ConsenSys plans to use the latest funding to expand its business by increasing its headcount from 700 to over 1,000 employees by the end of 2022. The leading blockchain firm also said that it intends to use the fresh funds raised to support the expansion of its MetaMask and its flagship products.
The fundraising was led by ParaFi Capital, which also participated in the previous fundraising. Other Series C investors, including Third Point, True Capital Management, Marshall Wace, and UTA VC, United Talent Agency’s venture fund, also participated in the round. Serval new investors also joined this round of funding, including C Ventures, Sound Ventures, Anthos Capital, Microsoft, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and Temasek.
ConsenSys mentioned that it would convert the raised funds into Ethereum (ETH) to build further its ‘ultrasound money’ position as a rebalance to its Ethereum to fiat ratio in line with its treasury strategy.
Joseph Lubin, the founder and CEO of ConsenSys, talked about the development and said: “I think of ConsenSys as a broad and deep capabilities machine for the decentralized protocols ecosystem, able to rapidly capitalize at scale on fundamental new constructs that emerge, such as developer tooling, wallets, security audits, DeFi, NFTs, Layer-2 scaling, DAOs, and more.”
Building Digital Infrastructure for Future Finance
In November last year, ConsenSys raised $200 million in a Series C financing round, bringing its valuation to $3.2 billion.
The firm works to fulfil its mission, which is to unlock the collective power of communities by making Web3 universally easy to access, use, and build on. Founded in 2014, the blockchain company has continued to develop tools and infrastructure being used by over 450,000 developers, including MetaMask and leading DeFi and NFT platforms.
Last month, ConsenSys acquired MyCrypto, an open-source platform that allows users to manage Ethereum (ETH) accounts securely and privately. ConsenSys integrated its Web3 wallet, MetaMask, with MyCrypto to improve security and standardize the user experience across desktop, extension, mobile, and browser wallets.
In January, ConsenSys partnered with Visa to help central bank digital currency (CBDC) networks bridge the gap with traditional financial institutions. The partnership is set to enable customers to use their CBDC-linked Visa card or digital wallet anywhere that Visa is accepted worldwide. Currently, ConsenSys’ Protocols group — developer of Hyperledger Besu and ConsenSys Quorum — is building CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) for six central banks.
In December last year, ConsenSys partnered with Mastercard to improve efficiency, scale, and speed up transactions using the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain while focusing on network integrity. ETH-based protocols are used in various industries such as decentralized finance, NFTs, Web 3.0, and metaverse platforms. Over 177 million Ethereum addresses need improved scalable applications and privacy settings on the Ethereum blockchain.
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