United States ethereum (ETH) and decentralized protocols software company ConsenSys announced Tuesday the close of a $450 million financing ground, bringing its valuation to $7 billion.
ParaFi Capital led this raise after participating in ConsenSys’ Series C round in November 2021, ConsenSys said in a statement.
They were joined by new investors, including Temasek, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Microsoft, Anthos Capital, Sound Ventures, and C Ventures.
Series C investors Third Point, Marshall Wace, True Capital Management, and UTA VC, United Talent Agency’s venture fund, also participated in this round.
All proceeds from the round will be converted to ETH to further build ConsenSys’ “ultra sound money” position as a rebalance to its ETH to fiat ratio in line with ConsenSys’ treasury strategy. ConsenSys has long maintained a significant treasury of ETH, stablecoins and other crypto tokens, and is actively using its own financial infrastructure, such as MetaMask Institutional and Codefi Staking, to put these assets to work in DeFi protocols and via staking in anticipation of ETH’s upcoming merge to Proof of Stake.
“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, decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), Layer-2 scaling, decentralized autonomous organization (DAOs), and more. This view has resonated with our crypto native and growth investors in a Series D that will enable us to execute exciting growth strategies,
“This round takes in digital assets as well as fiat and converts all immediately to ETH. Next round will be our ‘Series ETH’ where we will assist investors in getting fully crypto native and contributing ETH as a symbol of and commitment to the ongoing paradigm shift,” said Joseph Lubin, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ConsenSys.
According to the statement, the funding will also support the rapid expansion of MetaMask with a major redesign scheduled for release later in 2022, as well as the roll out of a plug-in extensibility system that will allow integration with a wide variety of blockchain protocols and account security schemes. This roadmap expansion also builds on ConsenSys’s recent acquisition of MyCrypto, which will enable MetaMask to bolster its industry-leading security infrastructure and create a cohesive user experience across desktop, mobile, extension, and browser wallets.
ConsenSys will also accelerate the global adoption of Infura’s development toolsuite as well as ConsenSys’s efforts to drive NFT adoption for artists, content creators, brands, intellectual property owners, game publishers, and sport leagues.
With nearly 700 full time employees at present, ConsenSys’ hiring will surge this year as it is on track to scale to over 1,000 employees by the end of 2022. ConsenSys maintains a core objective to be an industry leader when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion, partnering with organizations like Work180, CryptoChicks and the Black Women Blockchain Council. Since September 2020 ConsenSys has increased gender balance in the workforce from 19 percent to 25 percent as of December 2021.
“ConsenSys has emerged as one of the most important companies in the blockchain space. In particular, Metamask is the gateway for over 30 million users to access web3 and DeFi applications every month, making it one of the most widely used
blockchain products in the world for consumers and businesses. As a long-time power user of ConsenSys’ products and services, ParaFi is thrilled to be an investor and thought partner as the company continues to operate at the forefront of decentralized infrastructure,” said ParaFi Capital Founder and Managing Partner Ben Forman.
Neil Cunha-Gomes, investor for SoftBank Investment Advisers said, “We’re delighted to partner with Joe and the team in their mission to power access to the decentralized web. We believe ConsenSys’ ecosystem of simple, neutral, and secure Web3 products continues to foster unprecedented levels of engagement and we’re excited to help them take Web3 adoption to the next level.”
ConsenSys is a ETH and decentralized protocols software company which enables developers, enterprises, and people worldwide to build next-generation applications, launch modern financial infrastructure, and access the decentralized web. Its product suite, composed of Infura, Quorum, Codefi, MetaMask, Truffle, Diligence and its NFT platform, serves millions of users, supports billions of blockchain-based queries for our clients, and has handled billions of dollars in digital assets.
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