Ethereum blockchain platform Polygon has raised $450 million led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from Tiger Global, SoftBank, Galaxy Digital, Republic Capital, Makers Fund, Alameda Research, Alan Howard, Alexis Ohanian, Steadview Capital, Elevation Capital, Animoca Brands, Spartan Fund, Dragonfly Capital, Variant Fund, and Kevin O’Leary.
Polygon is the first well-structured, easy-to-use platform for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development. Its core component is Polygon SDK, a modular, flexible framework that supports building multiple types of applications.
The company said that the fundraise will allow the team to consolidate its lead in the race to scale Ethereum, obviating the need for alternative blockchains and paving the way for mass adoption of Web3 applications.
Ethereum blockchain platform Polygon was founded by Sandeep Nailwal, Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun in 2017.
“Web3 builds on the early Internet’s open-source ideals, enabling users to create the value, control the network and reap the rewards. Ethereum, scaled by Polygon, will be the bedrock of this next stage in the Web’s evolution,” said Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal. “Technological disruption didn’t start with Web2, nor is it going to end there. That’s why we are very excited to see some of the same firms that funded the previous round of innovation now being our Web3 vision.”
Polygon team is building a complete suite of solutions that is similar to what Amazon Web Services offers Web2 developers – a tool for every possible use case and scaling at a click of a button. For Web3, Polygon PoS already offers an execution layer with low fees and high transaction throughput secured by the Ethereum mainnet.
“The platform of choice to build on the blockchain today is Polygon. Thousands of developers across a range of applications are choosing Polygon and their complete set of scaling solutions for the Ethereum ecosystem,” said Shailesh Lakhani, MD at Sequoia India. “This is an ambitious and aggressive team, one that values innovation at its core. Sequoia Capital India is thrilled to lead this significant financing round.”
Polygon effectively transforms Ethereum into a full-fledged multi-chain system (aka Internet of Blockchains). This multi-chain system is akin to other ones such as Polkadot, Cosmos, Avalanche etc with the advantages of Ethereum’s security, vibrant ecosystem and openness.
“Adoption by individual users and enterprises, emergence of real world applications like DeFi and NFTs, involvement from the institutional community – all of these are indicators that Web3 as a technology has passed a major installation milestone and is here to stay,” Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said. “The excitement about Polygon and Ethereum is that together they are building the base layer for this new Internet.”
With Polygon, new features are being built around the existing proven technology to expand the ability to cater to diverse needs from the developer ecosystem. Polygon will continue to develop the core technology so that it can scale to a larger ecosystem.
