Chinese blockchain startup Nervos has raised US$28 million in a Series A funding round from Polychain Capital, Sequoia China, and others, to develop a hybrid blockchain network for enterprises decentralized applications (dApps). The new capital will be used to grow its product and engineering teams, accelerate development of its enterprise blockchain solutions, and ramp up strategic partnerships, the startup said on Wednesday.
Nervos is developing a solution that combines the advantages of a public blockchain and an application chain to allow enterprises to build and deploy dApps without committing their entire tech stack to the blockchain.
More specifically, Nervos will be a network of interoperable protocols built on top of an open network called the Nervos Common Knowledge Base (CKB) designed for enterprise applications.
The Nervos Common Knowledge Base (CKB) (layer 1), the core component of the Nervos Network, will serve as a general purpose common knowledge base, providing data, asset, and identity services. Nervos CKB will be built as a security anchor for all blockchains (all layer 2 protocols) in the Nervos network. This layered architectural design will enable enterprises and application developers to decide what goes into the blockchain.
Jan Xie, co-founder and chief architect of Nervos, and a former research and developer at the Ethereum Foundation on Caster and sharding, said that while the blockchain industry has evolved substantially in the past couple of years, available solutions and infrastructures are inadequate for enterprise use as they are unable to meet both the security and performance requirements of enterprises.
“While there are undeniable benefits for enterprises that utilize blockchain technology to innovate and improve existing systems, enterprise adoption has been held back by a host of challenges like scalability, security and complexity,” Xie said. “The new funding will allow us to move full speed ahead as we build an infrastructure that will allow enterprises to reduce the costs of developing and deploying blockchain applications.”
Steven Ji, partner at Sequoia China, said that while there is no shortage of blockchain projects and startups in China, “Nervos stands out because it has a clear mission and a well-defined plan to bring tangible and immediate benefits to the most promising segment of blockchain users.”
Edith Yeung, an advisor to Nervos and the head of 500 Startups China, added that the Nervos team was “hands down the best technical team in China.”
“Their contributions to Ethereum, imToken and the CITA blockchain have all become core innovations for the entire blockchain ecosystem, so I’m truly excited to support them as they take on their most ambitious challenge yet,” Yeung said.