Funding Roundup: Crypto Infrastructure All the Rage
Blockstream secures $125 million, QuickNode lands $60 million
piotr szczepanek/Shutterstock.com modified by Blockworks
Crypto infrastructure companies scored significant funding this week.
Among them was Blockstream, which landed $125 million in a convertible note from London-based Kingsway Capital, with participation from bitcoin-focused Fulgur Ventures. The overall infrastructure trend isn’t necessarily new, but such efforts do appear to be escalating.
The latest capital haul follows the firm’s Series B in August 2021, when the company procured $210 million from investors to expand mining facilities and acquire Spondoolies, a crypto mining gear startup.
Erik Svenson, Blockstream’s president and chief financial officer, said in a statement that the fundraise allows the company to “accelerate” its year-over-year revenue growth and “build infrastructure for the future Bitcoin economy.”
Added Svenson: “We remain focused on reducing risk for institutional bitcoin miners and enabling enterprise users to build high-value use cases on the most secure, robust, and scalable blockchain in the world — Bitcoin.”
Another infrastructure company that corralled funding this week was QuickNode. The end-to-end development platform closed a $60 million Series B led by 10T holdings. Other investors who participated in the round include Tiger Global, Seven Seven Six, Protocol Labs and QED.
The latest funding brings QuickNode’s total valuation to $800 million, and will be used to grow the company’s international presence.
“The long-term health and success of Web3 are dependent on scalability, accessibility, and interoperability,” said Alexis Ohanian, founder of Seven Seven Six, which also invested in the company’s seed round.
”[QuickNode’s] foundational technology and platform is building not only to meet the current needs of top Web3-native companies and flagship global brands but also those of the future decentralized web,” he said.
In a smaller fundraising effort, Tholos, an MPC wallet platform — similar to Fireblocks — landed pre-seed funding of $1.5 million.
The round was led by four crypto-native venture capitalists, including North Island Ventures, Lattice, Dispersion Capital and Chainforest. A handful of angel investors also participated, Abraham Litwin-Logan, the founder of Tholos, told Blockworks.
Tholos’ team currently consists of the co-founders, a full stack engineer, a mobile engineer and the head of product and design, as well as two part-time senior back-end engineers. But additional hiring, enabled by the cash infusion, is already under way, according to the team.
“On the cryptography side of things — we’ve partnered with a multi-party computation cryptography team in Israel, which is made up of three cryptographers,” Litwin-Logan said, adding that the remaining cash would be used for product development and testing before it goes onto the market.
Other notable fundraises this week include:
- Spatial Labs lands $10 million from Blockchain Capital, with participation from Marcy Venture Partners, a firm co-founded by Jay-Z.
- Gemba, a software developer for virtual reality training, secures $18 million from Parkway Venture Capital, bringing its valuation to $60 million.
- London-based blockchain infrastructure company Calimero Network closes an $8.5 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures, Lyrik Ventures and NEAR Foundation.
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