The developer of blockchain software technology ConsenSys which is also the owner of the popular Ethereum-based MetaMask wallet, announced a $450 million Series D round today, valuing the company at $7 billion.
In Brief:
- The round was led by ParaFi Capital, with Microsoft, SoftBank, and Temasek also participating as new investors.
- The funds will be used in the expansion of MetaMask, with a major redesign scheduled for release in 2022.
- Also in accelerating the global adoption of Infura’s development tool suite and to drive NFT adoption.
ParaFi Capital led the fundraising, and they were also involved in the previous fundraising. Temasek, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Anthos Capital, Sound Ventures, and C Ventures joined as new investors. Microsoft has made a rare crypto-related bet with the contribution to this funding.
Other Series C investors in this round included Third Point, Marshall Wace, TRUE Capital Management, and UTA VC, United Talent Agency’s venture fund.
ConsenSys is developing the foundational software for Web3. The fundraise follows MetaMask reaching over 30 million Monthly Active Users (MAU).
The announcement read: The proceeds from the round will be converted to ETH to rebalance the ratio of ETH to USD-equivalents in line with ConsenSys’ treasury strategy. This further builds ConsenSys’ “ultra sound money” position in advance of Ethereum’s upcoming merge to Proof of Stake.
It will also support MetaMask’s rapid expansion by hiring about 600 employees, with a major redesign scheduled for later this year. Also, to the implementation of a plug-in extensibility system that will allow integration with a wide range of blockchain protocols and account security schemes.
ConsenSys will also speed up global adoption of its Infura development tool suite, as well as efforts to drive NFT adoption among – artists, content creators, brands, intellectual property owners, game publishers, and sports leagues.
Joseph Lubin, founder and CEO of ConsenSys 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.”
ConsenSys has long kept a sizable treasury of ETH, stablecoins, and other crypto tokens. Its own financial infrastructure, such as MetaMask Institutional and Codefi Staking, is used to put these assets to work in DeFi protocols.
Neil Cunha-Gomes, the investor for SoftBank Investment Advisers, said, “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.”
Investors see ConsenSys as one of the companies that will power Web3. It has benefited from an influx of capital into emerging crypto trends such as DeFi, and NFTs. That is the reason that the latest funding round raised its valuation to almost double since its last fundraise last year – when it raised $200 million at a valuation of $3.2 billion.
Microsoft’s involvement demonstrates the growing interest in Web3 among the world’s largest technology companies. Other tech behemoths looking into Web3 include Facebook (now Meta).
Mark Zuckerberg reportedly stated recently that Instagram will be integrated with NFTs – users will be able to display their NFTs on their Instagram profile and mint new NFTs.
