Polygon announced a list of 38 investment institutions, including Blue Pool Capital, which is affiliated with Jack Ma

Source: Polygon Blog

Compiled by: Hu Tao, Chain Catcher

Polygon raised approximately $450 million through a private sale of its native MATIC tokens, with this round of financing led by Sequoia Capital India, followed by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Galaxy Digital, Galaxy Interactive, Tiger Global, Republic Capital, as well as Alan Howard (co-founder of Brevan Howard) and Kevin O'Leary (Mr. Wonderful from ABC's Shark Tank).

With this crucial funding, the core team can ensure Polygon's leadership in paving the way for the mass adoption of Web3 applications, and we believe this race will lead to Ethereum outperforming alternative blockchains. This funding will also allow Polygon to continue investing in cutting-edge zero-knowledge (ZK) technology, which will be key to bringing the next billion users into Web3.

The first significant round of financing for Polygon since its project launch in 2017 has also attracted Alameda Research, Transcend Fund, Makers Fund, Animoca Brands, global video game leader and gaming industry investor Scopely, dune Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Seven Seven Six, Elevation Capital, Sino Global Capital, DCG, Standard Crypto, Celsius, Dragonfly Capital, Variant Fund, Blue Pool Capital (Note: Blue Pool Capital, a family wealth fund co-founded by Jack Ma, Joe Tsai, and others), WorkPlay Ventures (led by Zynga founder Mark Pincus), Third Point, Steadview Capital, and more. (For a list of VCs participating in this fundraising, please refer to the appendix at the end.)

Community First

Despite this impressive list, Polygon has always been a community-first project, with its success attributed to the ecosystem of early believers, developers, and stakeholders. This will not change. The core team views this round of investment as a rising tide that lifts all boats and demonstrates the importance of the community in making Web3 a reality.

"Web3 is built on the open-source principles of the early internet, empowering users to create value, control the network, and reap rewards. Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal stated that Ethereum, expanded by Polygon, will be the cornerstone of the next phase of web development. "Technological disruption did not start with Web2, nor will it end there. That’s why we are excited to see some of the companies that funded the last round of innovation now becoming part of our Web3 vision."

The most pressing issue for Ethereum is how to enhance the network's capacity to handle more transactions. The rapid proliferation of new applications in decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has led to congestion and soaring fees. Polygon has launched a wide range of scaling options and the industry's lowest transaction rates.

AWS for Web3

The Polygon team is building a comprehensive solution similar to what Amazon Web Services provides for Web2 developers—a tool for all possible use cases, scalable with the click of a button. For Web3, Polygon PoS has already provided a low-fee and high-throughput execution layer secured by the Ethereum mainnet. With Polygon Edge, projects are building custom blockchains from scratch. In the near future, Polygon Avail will offer a universal, scalable data availability solution, while ZK solutions will first make network congestion a thing of the past and then address applications surrounding privacy.

"Today, the preferred platform for building on the blockchain is Polygon. Dr. Shailesh Lakhani from Sequoia India said, "This is an ambitious and aggressive team, one that is innovation-driven. Sequoia Capital India is thrilled to lead this significant round of financing."

Who is building on Polygon? Oh, just some of the biggest projects in Web3, from lending platforms like Aave to luxury brands like Dolce & Gabbana and NFT marketplaces including OpenSea and Mark Cuban's Lazy.com. Currently, there are over 7,000 decentralized applications (dApps) being built on Polygon, making it a primary destination for Web3 projects.

Soaring Adoption Rates

Polygon has also become a major destination for projects looking to build the future of gaming on Web3. The blockchain gaming and NFT sector, Polygon Studios, was established in July 2020 to assist in this mission and has since attracted projects including DraftKings, Upshot, Aavegotchi, Zed Run, Horizon Games' Skyweaver, Decentraland, Megacryptopolis, Neon District, Cometh, Animoca Brands' Sandbox, and Decentral Games.

Adoption of Polygon PoS has grown exponentially, recording 1 billion transactions last year. The network's 130 million+ unique addresses and over 2.67 million monthly active users now generate about 3 million transactions daily, more than twice the transaction volume of Ethereum. Polygon's native MATIC token has a market capitalization of over $12 billion.

To maintain the growth flywheel, Polygon is making significant investments in ZK cryptography, a technology widely regarded as the ultimate game for blockchain scaling. The core development team highlighted it as central to their strategic vision in a zero-knowledge paper published in August. As part of this mission, the team has allocated $1 billion (a significant portion of which is for ZK-related work).

Polygon now boasts an unparalleled collection of ZK efforts. The portfolio includes zkEVM developed by Polygon Hermez, the privacy-focused Polygon Nightfall rollup built in collaboration with EY, the STARK-based Polygon Miden universal rollup, and the Polygon Zero team applying a technique called recursion to ZK proofs.

"Adoption by individual users and enterprises, the emergence of real-world applications like DeFi and NFTs, and the involvement of the institutional community—all of these indicate that Web3 as a technology has passed a significant installation milestone and will continue to exist," said Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz. "What’s exciting about Polygon and Ethereum is that they are building the foundational layer for this new internet together."

Index of Names:
1 SoftBank Vision Fund 2
2 Tiger Global
3 Galaxy Digital/Galaxy Interactive
4 Sequoia Capital India
5 Republic Capital
6 Makers Fund
7 Scopely
8 Sangha Capital
11 Sino Global Capital
12 CoinFund
13 Alan Howard
14 Alameda Research
15 DCG
16 Bitfinex
17 Celsius
18 Seven Seven Six
19 Transcend Fund
20 WorkPlay Ventures (Mark Pincus)
21 Third Point
22 Blue Pool Capital
23 Accel Partners
24 Steadview Capital
25 Finality Capital Partners
26 Unacademy
27 Elevation Capital
28 Sound Ventures
29 Animoca Brands
30 Ghaf Capital
31 dune ventures
32 Union Square Ventures
33 Voodoo
34 Dragonfly Capital
35 Spartan Group
36 Variant Fund
37 Standard Crypto
38 Kevin O'Leary
and more.