Jacquelyn Melinek

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 <ul>
 <li>“This next wave of large-scale apps will be Web3 enabled because they represent better economic opportunities for creators,” Doug Petkanics, Livepeer CEO told Blockworks</li>
 <li>Livepeer has a large scaling update, Confluence, shipping in early 2022, which will move its internal protocol from layer-1 Ethereum to a layer-2 solution</li>
 </ul>
 
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An Ethereum-based video streaming network, Livepeer, has raised $20 million in a Series B-1 round, the company shared on Wednesday. 



Investors include Alan Howard, a billionaire hedge fund manager, and investment firm Tiger Global, among others. The capital will be used to continue pursuing opportunities to capture live-streaming infrastructure, eSports and live shopping, it said. 



The round follows its $20 million Series B from July that was led by Digital Currency Group. To date, Livepeer has raised a total of $48 million.&nbsp;



“This next wave of large-scale apps will be Web3 enabled because they represent better economic opportunities for creators,” Doug Petkanics, Livepeer CEO, told Blockworks. “They&#8217;re being built across categories like creator economy, decentralized social, metaverse, and more,” he said. 



These applications leverage monetization mechanics like NFTs, token gating, and shared ownership mechanics through communities and DAOs, and they&#8217;ll be built on open infrastructures such as Livepeer, which are crypto native, Petkanics said.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“The next TikTok scaled application is likely to emerge from these primitives,” he commented. </blockquote>



The decentralized video streaming network was founded in 2017 and has seen exponential growth during the past year as it hit a record of <a href="https://explorer.livepeer.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">3.6 million minutes</a> streamed in a single week in October, up six times from the start of 2021, Petkanics said. In the most recent week ending Jan 1, 2022, the Livepeer network streamed 2.34 million minutes. 



Livepeer has a large scaling update, Confluence, shipping in early 2022, which will move its internal protocol from layer-1 Ethereum to a layer-2 solution to enable cost effective participation for its supply-side node operators and token holding delegators, Petkanics said.&nbsp;



“We&#8217;ve all become acutely aware of the weaknesses of centralized systems,” Petkanics noted. “Whether it&#8217;s a whistleblower or a system outage, these legacy intermediaries simply can&#8217;t match the reliability of decentralized networks. Add in the ability to scale at a reasonable price, and it&#8217;s clear that Web3 infrastructure is one of the biggest investment themes of 2022,” he added.



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Alan Howard

Billionaire Alan Howard, Tiger Global Invest in $20M Funding Round for Livepeer

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 <ul>
 <li>Over the last year, Vauld’s user base and assets under management have grown more than 200 times, Bathija said. </li>
 <li>“Cryptocurrencies offer individuals a unique opportunity to not only invest in the future but also a new way to build wealth,” he said. </li>
 </ul>
 
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Vauld, a global borrowing and lending platform and exchange, has closed a $25 million Series A financing round led by Peter Theil’s Valar Ventures, the company said in a statement.



Additional investors include <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/pantera-capital-invest-in-crypto-with-a-multi-year-outlook/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pantera Capital</a>, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/coinbase-crypto-market-cap-up-86-ytd-ethereum-passes-bitcoin-on-yoy-growth/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Coinbase</a> Ventures, CMT Digital, Gumi Cryptos, Robert Leshner, Cadenza Capital, and others. The company said it has raised a cumulative $27 million in capital to date.



The Singapore-based company, which was previously known as Bank of Hodlers, supports over 30 cryptocurrencies and operates across over 160 countries, with a strong foothold in Europe and <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/singaporean-zebpay-creates-first-female-led-dao/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">India</a>, the company’s CEO and co-founder Darshan Bathija told Blockworks in an interview.&nbsp;



The company is also in partnership with exchange and custody partners, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/binance-bitcoin-flow-stable-amidst-regulatory-challenges-possible-executive-shakeup/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Binance</a> and <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/bitgo-and-index-coop-partner-to-build-blue-chip-experience-for-defi-investment/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BitGo</a>, to offer its platform.&nbsp;



“We’re seeing tremendous demand to grow crypto wealth,” Bathija said, adding that over the last year, Vauld’s user base and assets under management have grown more than 200 times.



The funding will be used to support the company’s international growth and licensing in addition to expanding its retail crypto banking and investing platform. Additionally, it’ll bring in new talent and plans to have over 200 job openings in the near future, Bathija noted.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">More funding for decentralization&nbsp;</h3>



In other funding news, Livepeer, a decentralized video transcoding network, raised $20 million to build new Web 3.0 infrastructure.&nbsp;



The company, which is built on the Ethereum blockchain, raised the money in a round led by DCG, with participation from Northzone, Coinbase Ventures, Coinfund, Mike Dudas’ 6th Man Ventures and Animal Ventures. In the past, Livepeer raised $8 million in a Series A round led by Northzone.&nbsp;



“Livepeer’s on-demand platform provides scalable streaming without sacrificing performance or reliability so developers can build live-streaming apps at a fraction of the cost of cloud providers,” co-founder and CEO Doug Petkanics said.&nbsp;



As more content creators seek to enter the video streaming industry, the Livepeer network has seen substantial growth with transcoding over a million minutes per week, with some weeks exceeding 2 million minutes, the company said.&nbsp;



The growth has been driven by a “booming creator economy” and need for infrastructure to manage hundreds of thousands of streamers broadcasting live video concurrently.&nbsp;



The $20 million in funds will be used to scale its teams, expand use cases for the core technology and make the company’s product available across blockchain ecosystems.&nbsp;&nbsp;



&#8220;Next level for Livepeer is expanding the video capabilities from live stream transcoding into content delivery services and AI based video tasks, such as automatic scene classification to assist in moderation,” Petkanics said in an email to Blockworks.



Want more investor-focused content on digital assets? <a target="_blank" href="https://cms.blockworks.co/events/digital-asset-summit-2021-2/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Join us</a> September 13th and 14th for the Digital Asset Summit (DAS) in NYC. Use code ARTICLE for $75 off your ticket. <a target="_blank" href="https://cms.blockworks.co/events/digital-asset-summit-2021-2/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Buy it now</a>.

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