Binance Labs announced the first investment from its Polkadot ecosystem fund as the company led the latest $2.4 million funding round of Plasm Network. Binance introduced a $10 million fund in December 2020 to support projects in the Polkadot’s ecosystem.
According to the official announcement, HashKey, LongHash, Digital Finance Group and PAKA Ventures participated in the funding round. Plasm Network aims to accelerate the development of its Ethereum bridge, on-chain governance, and Network Portal with the latest investment.
Plasm Network is a scalable smart contract platform on Polkadot. The company deployed the first-ever smart contract on Polka’s testnet, Rococo. The company plans to become one of the first Kusama & Polkadot parachains.
Commenting on the recent announcement, Wei Zhou, Head of Binance Labs, said: “We have been very impressed by Plasm Network’s growth since its launch. The first parachain connected to the Rococo-V1 Parachains Testnet is one of the most promising parachain candidates for Polkadot mainnet. By investing and supporting Plasm, we are demonstrating our commitment to supporting the growth and development of DOT ecosystem.”
Additionally, Plasm Network mentioned that the company is in the process of developing ZK Rollups in their underlying parachain.
Growth of Polkadot
The Polkadot ecosystem has grown significantly in the last few months as several blockchain startups have started using the network. Tidal Finance, an insurance startup built on Polkadot blockchain raised nearly $2 million in seed funding recently. DOT, the cryptocurrency of Polkadot surged significantly since the start of 2021. The cryptocurrency is up more than 150% in the last 6 weeks. DOT is currently trading above $23 with a market cap of over $21 billion. DOT is now more valuable than Cardano (ADA) and XRP.
“Plasm is our first Polkadot accelerator project. We are excited to continue to support Plasm in becoming the leading smart contract platform in the DOT ecosystem,” Emma Cui, CEO at LongHash Ventures mentioned in the official announcement.
(Photo: Binance)
