Binance and Andreessen Horowitz Found New Investment Targets
Two blockchain-based projects, Dfinity and Terra, have now secured funding from big names such as Andreessen Horowitz and Binance respectively. These two cases come as proof that although the market is still far from what it used to be, investors still believe in blockchain and related projects.
Dfinity Foundation raised USD 102 million in a private sale of tokens to accredited investors, bringing its total capital raised to more than USD 190 million, according to Bloomberg. Aside from Andreessen Horowitz, investors include Polychain Capital, SV Angel, Aspect Ventures, and Multicoin Capital. Andreessen Horowitz said Dfinity is the biggest position in its two-month old fund called a16z crypto but declined to disclose how much it invested.
Dfinity is a blockchain-based cloud computing project. Its aim is to develop a decentralized “internet computer that will become the cloud 3.0.” The project has already been backed by a16z as well as Polychain in the past round of funding.
Meanwhile, Danial Shin, the founder behind a USD 1.4 billion startup unicorn called TMON, today announced that he has raised USD 32 million for a new stablecoin project called Terra. This seed round was notably backed by the Binance exchange, as well as Polychain, FBG Capital, Hashed, 1kx, Kenetic Capital, Arrington XRP and others.
Terra already has a userbase in the so-called Terra Alliance, consisting of a group of e-commerce sites that are interested in incorporating the stablecoin into their business. Shin told CoinDesk, “We’ve banded together all the e-commerce platforms in Asia that are not called Alibaba or Amazon to push Terra into the hands of many many people.”
Terra will be used by e-commerce sites to lower transaction fees, and will consist of two tokens: terra and luna. Luna tokens will serve as collateral on the network. Their sale will supply an initial reserve that will help stabilize the price versus fiat. The other token, terra, will act as the day-to-day payment method that consumers will use when the protocol goes live. It will be emitted as needed based on demand, and its transactions will pay a small fee to holders of luna.
As reported, the structure of investors in initial coin offerings (ICO) is changing as many projects prefer to raise the majority of their ICO funding in private sales rather than public sales. At the same time, the number ICOs more than doubled in Q2 this year, compared to Q1, while the success rate and profitability decreased.
