JPMorgan, Mastercard lead $65M ConsenSys raise

ConsenSys, a prominent blockchain software company, has raised $65 million in strategic investments from major financial institutions including JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard and UBS, offering yet another sign that traditional finance is entering the crypto space.

The investment round will aid ConsenSys in expanding its enterprise blockchain infrastructure solutions to enable more DeFi and Web3 applications on Ethereum (ETH), the company announced Tuesday. After a year of significant growth, ConsenSys is now focusing on accelerating mainstream adoption of Web3, which is considered to be the next phase of the internet’s evolution.

In addition to the major finance players, blockchain-focused firms like Protocol Labs, Maker Foundation and Alameda Research also contributed to the raise.

Joseph Lubin, founder of ConsenSys and co-founder of Ethereum, said the funding round highlighted the growing number of “revolutionaries” getting behind blockchain technology. He continued:

“ConsenSys’ software stack represents access to a new automated objective trust foundation enabled by decentralized protocols like Ethereum.”

UBS’ Mike Dargan, who heads the firm’s group technology division, said adding ConsenSys to the portfolio “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 Dhamadharan, executive vice president of digital asset and blockchain products at Mastercard, called Enterprise Ethereum “a key infrastructure on which we and our partners our building payment and non-payment applications…” He also commented on Mastercard’s support of central banks as they explore the utility of central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs:

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.”

ConsenSys has made numerous headlines of late due to its expanding suite of products and major partnerships. As Cointelegraph recently reported, ConsenSys has developed Palm, a new layer-two NFT platform, to compete with Flow, a leading NFT chain.

The firm’s core software stack has also witnessed exponential demand, with its Ethereum wallet and MetaMask browser garnering over 3 million monthly active users. Roughly 4.5 million developers are using ConsenSys’ Truffle software suite and more than 150,000 are building blockchain-based apps on Infura.