The Dfinity Foundation has raised $102 million for the creation of its own blockchain protocol. This amount was achieved as part of a closed round of a tokens sale for accredited investors. As Bloomberg reports, the financing round was led by the crypto department of Andreessen Horowitz’ venture capital firm a16z.
Polychain Capital, Aspect Ventures, Multicoin Capital, Amino Capital, SV Angel and members of Dfinity community also became investors. As a result of the round, the total capital of the project amounted to about $200 million. All the coins were distributed through Airdrop, while the price of one token for investors leveled at $4.18.
The team abandoned the idea of conducting an ICO because of the regulatory uncertainty. At the beginning of the year, the project has collected more than $60 million thanks to the participation of the same Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain Capital.
All funds will go to the creation of a "cloud 3.0" - a project that aims to launch a global computer based on the scalable network. According to the developers, it should be more effective than blockchain-based Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm and more decentralized than systems based on supernodes. The network is already running in a test mode, with the beta version to be launched in the first half of 2019. After that, the company promises to distribute DFN tokens worth $35 million to the community members. Representatives of a16z note that one of the reasons to invest in the project was the team. It includes former developers of Alphabet Inc and Uber, as well as a Ph.D. from Yale University.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
- The platform developed by Dfinity can be used for the next generation of services and software. It will be based on open source code and, according to the creators, should be more secure and economical than existing ones.
- Despite fluctuations in the exchange rate, investors are more actively taking part in financing blockchain projects. Since the beginning of the year, the total amount of investment in startups has exceeded $16 billion, which more than doubles the same number for the entire 2017.