ConsenSys raises $65M from JP Morgan, Mastercard and others

ConsenSys will use the funds raised to accelerate the convergence of DeFi with enterprise blockchain infrastructure

Ethereum software company ConsenSys yesterday announced the completion of a $65 million funding round which drew support from Mastercard, J.P. Morgan, and UBS. Other investors from the world of blockchain included Alameda Research, Maker Foundation, Protocol Labs, The LAO, and Fenbushi. Some of them chose to invest with the Ethereum-based stablecoins USDC and DAI. The funds raised will be used to accelerate the convergence of decentralised finance (DeFi) with enterprise blockchain infrastructure.

ConsenSys Founder and Ethereum Co-founder, Joseph Lubin, explained, “ConsenSys’ software stack represents access to a new automated objective trust foundation enabled by decentralized protocols like Ethereum. We are proud to partner with preeminent financial firms alongside leading crypto companies to further converge the centralized and decentralized financial domains at this particularly exciting time of growth for ConsenSys and the entire industry.”

As well as contributing to the development of Ethereum 2.0, ConsenSys will provide access to Ethereum-adjacent protocols like Filecoin and support Layer 2 Ethereum networks through its suite of products. These include MetaMask, Diligence, Codefi, Truffle, Infura, and Quorum, which it acquired from J.P. Morgan following a partnership in August 2020.

These products make Ethereum and Web3 more accessible for consumers, developers, and enterprises. Truffle is used by millions of developers to deploy smart contracts, Infura’s APIs are leveraged by over 150,000 developers, and MetaMask has over 3 million monthly active users. Codefi, along with ConsenSys’ Protocols group, is developing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) for six different banks.

Mastercard’s Executive Vice President of Digital Asset and Blockchain Products and Partnerships, Raj Dhamodharan, added, “Enterprise Ethereum is a key infrastructure on which we and our partners are building payment and non-payment applications to power the future of commerce. 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.”