Blockchain-centric startup The Graph secures fresh capital from a funding round led by Tiger Global, to further leverage decentralized web.
Blockchain startup The Graph recently concluded a funding exercise where it raised $50 million in fresh capital to beef up operations. The platform, which sees itself as a “Google for Blockchains”, generated the funds from a pool spearheaded by investment firm Tiger Global. The lead company specializes in underwriting projects in the internet, software, consumer, and financial technology (fintech) space.
The Graph, which itself specializes in indexing and querying blockchain data, also received additional financial backing from other investor participants. Some of these include FinTech Collective, Fenbushi Capital, Reciprocal Ventures, and Blockwall Digital Assets Fund.
The Graph generated the funds by selling ‘The Graph’ tokens to its investors. According to the company, it now looks to use the funds for expansion in Asia and Europe.
The Graph Funding Could Be a Welcome Indicator of Additional Capital Inflow into the Sector
Last year, venture capital investment in crypto startups shattered records. For instance, companies like Animoca Brands Corp and OpenSea attained multi-billion-dollar valuations. The former saw its valuation recently surge to $5 billion from a fresh deal. The new figure is more than double the original amount generated from an October round in 2020.
The latest funding development with The Graph seemingly augurs well for investors in the crypto space. It could mean that VC investment is on course to pick up this year, from where it left off last year.
The Graph protocol indexes structured data across 26 different blockchain networks. Some of these include Ethereum, NEAR, Arbitrium, Optimism, Polygon, Avalanche, Celo, Fantom, Moonbeam, and IPFS. Furthermore, The Graph’s subgraphs are currently utilized by a growing number of crypto exchanges, DeFi platforms, and NFT marketplaces. These include Uniswap, Synthetix, KnownOrigin, Gnosis, Balancer, Livepeer, DAOstack, Audius, and Decentraland.
John Curtius, a partner at Tiger Global, noted that the digital asset market is growing at a tremendous rate. Curtius also stated that the Graph appears set to be in business for a very long time because of this trend. As he put it:
“We expect to see an exponential increase in the data being stored on blockchains, especially given the pace at which the trillion dollar market has been growing over the past year. The Graph is one of the most important pillars of the decentralized web.”
The “decentralized web” referred to by Curtius forms the concept of Web3, an integral part of the emerging metaverse industry. This might suggest that The Graph will play a vital role or offer some utility with metaverse offerings.
GRT
As of press time, The Graph’s native token (GRT) was changing hands at around $0.48. In the last week, the coin has given up a substantial 18% in overall market value, which now stands at $2.5 billion. The downturn results from the broader retreat in the crypto market at the turn of the new year.
Tolu is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast based in Lagos. He likes to demystify crypto stories to the bare basics so that anyone anywhere can understand without too much background knowledge.
When he’s not neck-deep in crypto stories, Tolu enjoys music, loves to sing and is an avid movie lover.
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