Origin Protocol, a decentralised sharing economy network developer, has completed a $28.5m strategic round.
The funding round was made of a mixture of traditional Silicon Valley investors and cryptocurrency funds. Investors included Foundation Capital, BlockTower Capital, Turing Capital, 1kx fund, FBG, Danhua Capital, Continue Capital, PreAngel Fund, Hashed, Smart Contract Japan, Red Robot, Kenetic Capital, BlockAsset, Spartan Group, Iconic, Beyond Blocks and KBW Ventures.
Alongside the venture firms was a selection of angel investors including former Y Combinator partner Garry Tan, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, AngelList’s top syndicate lead Gil Penchina, Protocol Labs investor Kamal Ravikant, Uber founding advisor Steve Jang, and Akamai founder Randall Kaplan.
Origin Protocol is building a solution for online marketplaces in the sharing economy on the Ethereum blockchain. The platform has already had commitments from 45 companies that intend to use the technology to build sharing economy applications, according to the Origin.
Its technology makes it easier for sellers to create and manage listings, as well as helping buyers and sellers to connect, browse listings, make bookings, and leave ratings, among others.
While the platform has an existing prototype, it is yet to launch; however, the company is planning a public beta in the coming months.
Origin Protocol co-founder Matthew Liu said, “With a strong group of strategic investors behind us, the new capital will be used to continue to build out our world-class engineering, product, and business teams as we gear up for a full platform deployment. We’re also allocating capital to support our developer partners that are building on Origin and to find creative ways to give back to the community.”
Before this investment, the company had previously collected $3m in funding from Pantera Capital last year.
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