ConsenSys, a decentralised protocols and ethereum software firm based in the United States, has raised $450 million in funding, bringing its total worth to $7 billion.
Temasek, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Microsoft, Anthos Capital, Sound Ventures, and C Ventures joined the round as new investors, including Temasek, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Microsoft, Anthos Capital, Sound Ventures, and C Ventures, who had previously invested in ConsenSys’ Series C round in November last year.
Third Point, Marshall Wace, True Capital Management, and UTA VC, United Talent Agency’s venture fund, were among the Series C investors in this round.
ConsenSys’ legal counsel in this transaction was Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.
Web3 is the next wave of the Internet, and ConsenSys is building the underlying software for it.
The proceeds of the round will be converted to ethereum (ETH) to strengthen ConsenSys’ “ultra sound money” position and rebalance the company’s ETH to fiat ratio, as part of its treasury strategy. ConsenSys has long held a sizable treasury of ETH, stablecoins, and other crypto tokens, and actively employs its own financial infrastructure, such as MetaMask Institutional and Codefi Staking, to put these assets to work in DeFi protocols and through staking in anticipation of ethereum’s upcoming merge to Proof of Stake.
Joseph Lubin, founder and CEO of ConsenSys, said, “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. This view has resonated with our crypto native and growth investors in a Series D that will enable us to execute exciting growth strategies.”
Funding will also support the rapid expansion of MetaMask with a major redesign scheduled for release later in 2022, as well as the roll out of a plug-in extensibility system that will allow integration with a wide variety of blockchain protocols and account security schemes. This roadmap expansion also builds on ConsenSys’s recent acquisition of MyCrypto, which will enable MetaMask to bolster its industry-leading security infrastructure and create a cohesive user experience across desktop, mobile, extension, and browser wallets.
