The Ethereum software firm Consensys has announced the incubator has raised $450 million in a Series D funding round led by Parafi Capital. The latest financing brings the company’s valuation to over $7 billion, following the $200 million Series C raise Consensys secured last November.
Consensys Raises $450M, Round Proceeds Will Be Converted To Ether
Ethereum software and incubator company Consensys has revealed that it has closed a $450 million Series D round led by venture capital firm Parafi Capital. The funding round also saw participation from Third Point, Marshall Wace, True Capital Management, Temasek, Softbank Vision Fund 2, Microsoft, Anthos Capital, Sound Ventures, UTA VC and C Ventures. Interestingly, the company claims that the $450 million will immediately be converted to Ethereum (ETH).
“All proceeds from the round will be converted to ETH to further build Consensys’ ‘ultra-sound money’ position as a rebalance to its ETH to fiat ratio in line with Consensys’ treasury strategy,” the firm’s announcement on Tuesday disclosed. Consensys adds that the company has kept ether on its balance sheet for quite some time alongside stablecoins and other tokens. The assets are put to work, Consensys details, via staking and “actively using its own financial infrastructure.”
Metamask captures 30 million monthly active users, Infura commands over 430,000 developers
Consensys’ announcement of the $450 million funding round comes at the same time the company’s Metamask wallet hit 30 million monthly active users (MAUs). The disclosure points out that “the United States, the Philippines, Brazil, Germany and Nigeria represent some of Metamask’s most active markets.” Consensys also announced a milestone related to the Infura blockchain infrastructure product. According to Consensys:
[Infura] has more than 430,000 developers and in excess of $1 trillion in annualized on-chain ETH transaction volume, 10x that of its nearest competitor.
Joseph Lubin, the founder and CEO of Consensys, said that while this funding round will convert fiat to ether, the “next round will be our ‘ETH Series’ where we will help investors become fully crypto native and contribute to the ETH”. Alongside Consensys, the Ethereum network and its native token ETH have seen phenomenal growth. ETH is up 38.8% year-to-date and the chain accounts for 54.79% of total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (defi) or $109.03 billion, as of time of writing.
“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,” Lubin added. “This view has resonated with our crypto native and growth investors in a Series D that will enable us to execute exciting growth strategies.”
