New York, NY, April 13, 2021 - Today, Consensys announced the final close of its $65M formation round to accelerate the convergence of decentralized finance (DeFi) and Web3 applications on Ethereum with enterprise blockchain infrastructure. Global financial services firms J.P. Morgan, Mastercard, and UBS invested alongside leading blockchain companies, including Protocol Labs, the Maker Foundation, Fenbushi, The LAO, and Alameda Research. Additional investors include CMT Digital, Greater Bay Area Homeland Development Fund, SNZ Holding, NGC Ventures, Quotidian Ventures, and Liberty City Ventures. Several funds invested with Ethereum-based stablecoins, DAI and USDC, as consideration.
The past year has been a period of strategic evolution and growth. The leading Ethereum company restructured to form Consensys, the core software business, and Consensys Mesh, the investment arm, incubator, and portfolio. Consensys also acquired Quorum from J.P. Morgan to deepen its commitment to and competitive position in the enterprise protocol ecosystem. Consensys is now an integrated Ethereum software company with best-in-class products powering the blockchain developer and financial user experience: Codefi, Diligence, Infura, MetaMask and Quorum. This product suite supports both public and private permissioned blockchain networks and will be supporting Layer 2 Ethereum networks and facilitating access to adjacent protocols like IPFS, Filecoin, and others. Consensys also contributes significantly to Ethereum 2.0.
Consensys’ products are the primary points to access Ethereum for developers, enterprises, and consumers, making Web3 more accessible and useful. MetaMask counts over 3 million monthly active users across mobile and desktop. More than 150,000 developers use Infura’s APIs. Its Protocols group which develops Hyperledger Besu and Consensys Quorum, along with Consensys Codefi, its commerce and finance application suite, are building Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) for six central banks.
To accelerate mainstream adoption of Web3, Consensys is focused on commercializing its industry leading platforms as distribution channels for leading DeFi protocols, catalyzing the convergence of traditional and decentralized finance. As an example, Consensys launched a token swap feature in the MetaMask wallet that enables users to access the largest selection of tokens at the most competitive prices, resulting in $2 billion in volume in decentralized exchange use.
Joseph Lubin, Founder of Consensys, Co-founder, Ethereum, commented, “When we set out to raise a round, it was important to us to patiently construct a diverse cap table, consistent with our belief that similar to how the web developed, the whole economy would join the revolutionaries on a next generation protocol. Consensys’ software stack represents access to a new automated objective trust foundation enabled by decentralized protocols like Ethereum. We are proud to partner with preeminent financial firms alongside leading crypto companies to further converge the centralized and decentralized financial domains at this particularly exciting time of growth for Consensys and the entire industry.”
Mike Dargan, Head of Group Technology at UBS said, “Our investment in Consensys adds proven expertise in distributed ledger technology to our UBS Next portfolio. This investment underscores our commitment to working with fintechs and the broader tech ecosystem to shape the future of banking for the benefits of our clients.”
Raj Dhamodharan, Executive Vice President of Digital Asset and Blockchain Products and Partnerships at Mastercard said, “Enterprise Ethereum is a key infrastructure on which we and our partners are building payment and non-payment applications to power the future of commerce. We are delivering on our multi-rail strategy focusing on digital currencies including our work supporting central banks as they explore CBDCs. Our investment and partnership with Consensys helps us bring secure and performant Enterprise Ethereum capabilities to our customers whom we believe will benefit from a robust, open source Ethereum community to create relevant and scalable solutions.”
Juan Benet, Founder of Protocol Labs said, “Consensys was one of the earliest organizations to make a huge bet on the future of the decentralized web. They supported hundreds of brilliant early visionaries to build entirely new classes of software and infrastructure that are now redefining some of our most important institutions. The Consensys team is going to play a huge role bringing web3 to its next billion users.”
Colleen Sullivan, Co-Founder and CEO of CMT Digital said, "Consensys is the pioneer in bridging the gaps across traditional finance, centralized crypto, and DeFi, and more broadly, between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. We are proud to participate in this funding round as the Consensys team continues to pave the way for global users — retail and institutional — to easily access the crypto ecosystem."
Gregory Di Prisco, Managing Partner at Distributed Capital Partners LLC and Head of Business Development at the Maker Foundation said, "Consensys is an integral component of Distributed Capital's portfolio and strategy. It offers exposure to the ‘pickaxes’ of Ethereum, the most advanced enterprise blockchain software, and a portfolio of high-growth startups. We're excited to be part of the journey."'
Katya Kovalenko, member of The LAO said, “We’re excited to support Consensys, which has been at the forefront of building Web3.0 since the very early days. We believe it will continue to lead the space with its infrastructure that is currently used by hundreds, if not thousands of blockchain projects and enterprises.”
About Consensys
Consensys is the leading Ethereum software company. We enable developers, enterprises, and people worldwide to build next-generation applications, launch modern financial infrastructure, and access the decentralized web. Our product suite, composed of Infura, Quorum, Codefi, MetaMask and Diligence, serves millions of users, supports billions of blockchain-based queries for our clients, and has handled billions of dollars in digital assets. Ethereum is the largest programmable blockchain in the world, leading in business adoption, developer community, and DeFi activity. On this trusted, open source foundation, we are building the digital economy of tomorrow. To explore our products and solutions, visit https://consensys.io.
About Mastercard (NYSE: MA)
Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.
About UBS
UBS provides financial advice and solutions to wealthy, institutional and corporate clients worldwide, as well as private clients in Switzerland. UBS is the largest truly global wealth manager, and a leading personal and corporate bank in Switzerland, with a large-scale and diversified global asset manager and a focused investment bank. The bank focuses on businesses that have a strong competitive position in their targeted markets, are capital efficient, and have an attractive long-term structural growth or profitability outlook.
About Protocol Labs
Protocol Labs is an open-source R&D lab that builds protocols, tools, and services to radically improve the internet. Protocol Labs’ projects include IPFS, Filecoin, libp2p, and more — which serve thousands of organizations and millions of people. The Filecoin Project is a decentralized storage network with the mission of creating a decentralized, efficient, and robust foundation for humanity’s information.
About The LAO
The LAO is a decentralized organization that is an entirely member-directed venture DAO organized in the United States, with an aim to be compliant with U.S. law. The LAO allows Members to pool capital, democratically vote projects to invest in, and share in any proceeds from the investment--using Ethereum and smart contracts and its coordination tooling. The LAO launched in late April 2020 and has backed over 40 projects across the Ethereum and blockchain ecosystem.
About Greater Bay Area Homeland Development Fund
Greater Bay Area Homeland Development Fund (“GBA Fund”) was jointly established by international large-scale industrial institutions, financial institutions and new economic enterprises in 2018. GBA Fund is set up to grasp the historical opportunities of the development of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the construction of an International Innovation and Technology Hub, focusing on technological innovation, industrial upgrading, quality of life, smart city and all other related industries. GBA Fund covers venture capital, private equity investment, listed company investment, M&A investment and so on to offer financial support for outstanding entrepreneurs and enterprises, connecting industrial and financial resources, achieving long-term returns for shareholders and investors, and contributing positively to economic and social development.
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