Polygon, a layer-2 scaling solution and the creator of the MATIC token, has raised $450 million in a funding round that was backed by some of blockchain’s biggest venture funds, offering further evidence that major investors are looking to support the future of Web3 development.
The investment round was led by Sequoia Capital India with participation from more than 40 venture capital funds, including SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Galaxy Digital, Tiger Global and Republic Capital. Billionaire investor Kevin O’Leary of ABC’s “Shark Tank,” also participated in the raise.
According to the report, the funds raised will be used to expand its scaling solutions, which includes Polygon PoS, Polygon Edge and Polygon Avail, and support mainstream adoption of Web3 applications. The team will also continue to invest in zero-knowledge technology after committing over $1 billion to such initiatives in November 2021.
Read: Polygon can now burn MATIC with the introduction of Ethereum’s EIP-1559 upgrade
What you should know
- The funds were raised through a private sale of Polygon’s native MATIC token, which surged after the funding was reported by CNBC today. At the time of this writing, MATIC is up 20.4%, currently trading $2.04. The market capitalization is now about $14.9 billion.
- Polygon, which offers scaling and infrastructure support to Ethereum, has attracted considerable attention over the past year as the explosive growth of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) caused the Ethereum network gas fees to be outrageously expensive.
- On the topic of Web3, Polygon has been highly active in expanding its developer network to power the next generation of decentralized applications. Polygon partnered with Seven Seven Six, a venture capital firm led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, to launch a new $200 million Web3 fund.
- In January, Silicon Valley venture fund Andreessen Horowitz announced it was committing another $1 billion to Web3 startups.
Read: Hacker gets $2 million Polygon bounty for finding crypto bug
Polygon co-founder Sandeep Naiwal said in the statement, “Web 3 builds on the early Internet’s open-source ideals, enabling users to create the value, control the network and reap the rewards. Ethereum, scaled by Polygon, will be the bedrock of this next stage in the Web’s evolution.”