Aptos Labs, the layer-1 blockchain developer has raised a $150 million funding round to further its ambitions in the Web3 space, further highlighting venture capital’s appetite for budding crypto-focused startups.
It has been reported that the funding round was co-led by venture studios FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto, with additional participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Apollo, Franklin Templeton, and Circle Ventures. According to Bloomberg, the funding round more than doubled the startup’s valuation, which was over $1 billion as of March.
However, Aptos was launched by former Meta employees Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching. The founders also had a role in advancing Mark Zuckerberg’s failed Diem project. As reported, the Diem Association and its subsidiaries wound down operations in February of this year, with Meta moving to sell the project’s intellectual property and other assets.
The report said that Aptos’ blockchain uses Diem’s programming language, called Move, which reportedly makes transactions cheaper and more efficient. Mysten Labs, another blockchain project to emerge from the ashes of Diem, also utilizes the Move programming language. Mysten Labs closed a $36 million funding round in December 2021.
Although the so-called crypto winter is upon us, venture capital continues to make strategic investments across the blockchain and crypto industries. Venture firms invested $14.67 billion into the sector in the second quarter, basically matching first-quarter commitments.
Thus, Web3, a broad concept that describes the next iteration of the blockchain-powered internet, attracted the most interest.
Source: Cointelegraph