Polygon News
MATIC Bounces Amid $450M Fundraising Round for Polygon
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Sequoia Capital has joined the list of venture capital firms racing to have a piece of Web3. The venture capital firm has led a $450 million funding round into the Polygon Network.
Polygon is a layer two scaling solution on the Ethereum blockchain. The network seeks to provide lower fees and faster speeds for users on the Ethereum blockchain. The network has also been heavily invested in Web3.
Polygon raises $450M in a funding round
Venture capital firms are rushing to invest in blockchains focusing on innovative technologies such as Web3. The Web3 hype has attracted some leading venture capital firms such as Andreesen Horowitz, Tiger Global and Sequoia. This is the first time Sequoia has gone vocal about Web3 initiatives.
According to a CNBC report, the managing director of Sequoia India, Shailesh Lakhani, opined that “Thousands of developers across a range of applications are choosing Polygon and their complete set of scaling solutions for the Ethereum ecosystem. This is an ambitious and aggressive team, one that values innovation at its core.”
This funding round was also supported by other investors, including Galaxy Digital, Tiger Global and Softbank. Polygon intends to dedicate $100 million from the raised funds into an “ecosystem fund.” This will support the development of new projects on the blockchain. The rest of the fund will be used by the Polygon team to continue developing the network.
The blockchain space is highly competitive, and Polygon is investing in being a pioneer of some of the innovative offerings in the sector, such as Web3. Polygon's co-founder, Sandeep Nailwal, has previously stated plans to make the blockchain a decentralized version of Amazon Web Services.
“Web3 for me means ownership, censorship resistance and verified compute, Nailwal said. He said that Web3 offers “transparency,” a different model from the current Web2 companies such as Meta and Twitter that have total control.
The Polygon blockchain wants to support large brands venturing into Web3. Some of the largest companies are already venturing into Web3. These include Adidas and Prada that are developing non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the network. According to Nailwal, some corporates have become more open towards NFTs than cryptocurrencies.
Polygon venturing into blockchain gaming
Besides Web3, Polygon is also venturing into blockchain gaming. Polygon Studios recently hired a former YouTube executive, Ryan Wyatt, as its head. When joining the network, Wyatt noted that lead developers were leaving large corporates to focus on blockchain games.
“Over the next two or three years, we're going to point to examples of high-polish, triple-A games that are built on Polygon,” he added. By diversifying into Web3 and blockchain gaming, Polygon is going beyond the ordinary decentralized finance (DeFi) offerings, giving a competitive edge.
Last year, Polygon announced a partnership with GameOn Entertainment. Through this partnership, GameOn had a platform to build NFT games on the Polygon network. The deal would also allow GameOn to expand into the rapidly growing NFT and blockchain gaming space.
Polygon's native token, MATIC, has been reacting to developments on the network. The growth of the network means more utilization of the token, which could trigger a rally. During the past 24 hours, MATIC has gained by over 10% to trade at $1.99, according to data from CoinGecko. MATIC has a market cap of $14.1 billion, and it ranks as the 15th largest cryptocurrency by this metric.
To learn more about this token visit our Investing in Polygon guide.
