Ethereum Builder and Metamask creator ConsenSys closes $450 million series D financing round led by ParaFi Capital.
- The latest funding round brings its valuation to over $7 billion, more than doubled since its $200 million Series C financing in November 2021.
- Lead investor ParaFi Capital also participated in ConsenSys’ Series C round. Series C investors — Third Point, Marshall Wace, TRUE Capital Management, and UTA VC, United Talent Agency’s venture fund — also participated in this round.
- Multiple new VCs joined the latest round as new investors, including Temasek, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Microsoft, Anthos Capital, Sound Ventures, and C Ventures. According to Crunchbase, ConsenSys is now funded by 37 investors.
- ConsenSys revealed that it will convert all Proceeds from the round to ETH to further builds ConsenSys’ “ultra sound money” position as a “rebalance the ETH to USD-equivalents ratio” in line with ConsenSys’ treasury strategy.
- The Ethereum builder has long maintained a treasury of ETH, stablecoins and other crypto tokens, and is actively using its own financial infrastructure, such as MetaMask Institutional and Codefi Staking, to put these assets to work in DeFi protocols and via staking in advance of Ethereum’s upcoming merge to Proof of Stake.
- Joseph Lubin, Founder and CEO of ConsenSys mentioned that this round takes in digital assets as well as fiat and converts immediately to ETH. “Next round will be our ‘Series ETH’ where we will assist investors in getting fully crypto native and contributing ETH as a symbol of and commitment to the ongoing paradigm shift,” said Joseph.
- According to the reports a major redesign of MetaMask is scheduled for release later in 2022. ConsenSys announced that the latest Funding will also support the rapid expansion of MetaMask, 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.
- ConsenSys has built some of the highly successful crypto products, including Infura, Quorum, Codefi, MetaMask, Truffle, and Diligence.
- ConsenSys has reportedly planned to accelerate the global adoption of Infura’s development tool suite as well as ConsenSys’s efforts to drive NFT adoption for artists, content creators, brands, intellectual property owners, game publishers, and sports leagues.
- ConsenSys plans to hire over 600 new employees globally, and will continue reinvestment in development and tooling for the extended Ethereum ecosystem.
- Sullivan & Cromwell LLP acted as ConsenSys’ legal advisor in this transaction. ConsenSys has raised a total of $725 million in funding over 4 rounds.