The Ethereum software and incubator firm Consensys has revealed it closed a $450 million Series D led by the venture capital firm Parafi Capital. The financing 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 says that the $450 million will be converted to ethereum (ETH) right away.
“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 firms 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 DevelopersThe Consensys announcement concerning the $450 million funding round comes at the same time the company‘s Metamask wallet hit 30 million monthly active users (MAUs). The disclosure highlights that the “United States, the Philippines, Brazil, Germany and Nigeria represent some of Metamask’s most active markets.” Consensys also announced a milestone tied to the blockchain infrastructure product Infura. 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 financing round will convert the fiat to ether, the “next round will be our ‘Series ETH’ where we will assist investors in getting fully crypto native and contributing ETH.” Alongside Consensys, the Ethereum network and its native token ETH saw phenomenal growth. ETH is up 38.8% year-to-date and the chain commands 54.79% of the total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (defi) or $109.03 billion, at the 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.”