On Jan. 28, 2021, Bifrost was excited to announce that it had already reached a new round of angel financing, which is the second round of financing after the seed round that raised $600,000 in September 2020. This round of investment institutions include: CMS Holding, Altonomy, SevenX, Zonff Partners, Paka, Timestop Capital, Incuba Alpha, Oasis Capital, Kernel Capital and Loopring co-founders Jay and Steve Guo, and other individual investors. Seed round investment institutions SNZ Holding and DFG continue to make additional investments.
After Bifrost completed the round of financing, it experienced rapid development, accumulated new community members, advanced its products, gained in-depth cooperation partners, and established a solid roadmap in just a few months. It shows the growth and transformation that Bifrost has experienced. With some hard work starting in 2020, Bifrost has now completed more than 80% of the basic function development. By March 2021, the last version of the Asgard CC4 testnet will have been released before the mainnet.
As the significant pledge derivative protocol in the Polkadot ecosystem, Bifrost already has over 8,200 active on-chain addresses. They participate in the contribution of the Bifrost ecosystem through testnet incentives, cross-chain testing, bug fixing, article writing, content translation, etc. In the Asgard testnet, there were a total of 1,231 nodes from seven countries that participated, and the number of online nodes reached 890. There were 66,385 times of EOS cross-chains during the testnet. .
Three days before Ethereum 2.0’s Beacon Chain launch, Bifrost launched the Eth2 staking derivative vETH as well as the first phase of vETH, called Mint Drop. The highest mint amount was 15,088.7563 vETH, and Bifrost cooperated with layer-two protocol network Loopring, both promoted vETH liquidity, which exceeded $900,000 liquidity in Ethereum layer-two network. In general, vETH will be launched in four stages. Before the Bifrost mainnet goes online, vETH will already be on Ethereum’s layer one, and its layer two accumulated the initial liquidity scale and a stable discount rate of 5%–10%, which shows the market’s recognition of the decentralized acceptance of vETH. As soon as Bifrost mainnet goes online, these vETH will become the first batch of cross-chain assets entering the Polkadot ecosystem. Bifrost is looking forward to connecting with Kusama and Polkadot in the near future.
After undergoing a transformation from zero to one, Bifrost is about to usher in growth from one to 100. Today, Bifrost is proud to announce that it has received a new round of financing of $1.55 million. New strategic partners Altonomy and Loopring help Bifrost to build liquidity for pledged derivatives, and link global resources for Bifrost on the market, financing and strategy levels.
Financing Institutions
SNZ Holding
SNZ is a blockchain fund founded by a group of engineers, blockchain evangelists and entrepreneurs who are passionate about disruptive blockchain technologies. SNZ envisions blockchain as a way to restore the original spirits of the internet and an opportunity to build a better future with protected privacy, validated information, distributed supercomputing, digitized assets and beyond. SNZ’s mission is to empower valuable blockchain projects through the SNZ hub, a network with global top-tier venture capitals, state-of-the-art blockchain technologies and various communities.
Digital Finance Group
Digital Finance Group is a global blockchain and digital asset investment company that was established in 2015. DFG manages more than $550 million in investments. Its investment portfolio includes equity projects, such as LedgerX, Brave, Circle and Ripio. DFG is also a major investor in DOT and Polkadot ecological projects, Near, Solana and avalanche.
CMS Holding
CMS Holdings was founded by Daniel Matuszewski, the former head of Circle Trade — an over-the-counter platform owned by crypto-asset company Circle. Other partners of the company include Bobby Cho, former head of trading in the crypto department of Cumberland DRW, and Julien Collard-Seguin, former head of technology at Circle-Seguin.
Altonomy
Altonomy is a global trading house that provides institutional-grade liquidity solutions, OTC trading and asset management services, with a presence in Singapore, the United States and China. Altonomy is also an active strategic investor, with its deep background and unique insights in trading, helping early-stage projects with comprehensive secondary market planning, and global go-to-market strategies. Altonomy was founded by veteran traders bringing decades of experience from marquee brands including Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Morgan Stanley, CME Group, to name a few.
SevenX Ventures
SevenX Ventures is a very tech-driven crypto investment company with a total cap of $12 million. The core team has 4–5 years of experience in the crypto market with expertise in overall go-to-market strategy, token model design, marketing, centralized exchanges and community resources. What makes SevenX special is that it is a proactive investor that helps projects developments.
Zonff Partners
Zonff Partners, founded in November 2017, is a fund focused on venture investments, quantitative hedging, and mining and computing investments in the cryptocurrency industry. The company applies more complex three-dimensional management strategies to capture structural opportunities in the development cycle of blockchains, expands its investment portfolio, and strategically lays out its own ecosystem. Zonff Partners has over $200 million under management and invested in over 60 projects, such as DoDo, Phala Network, Bifrost, MCDEX, Bitwell, FinNexus, MaskBook and Tidal in 2020. Zonff Partners rich industrial resources in China and overseas and actively participates in various developer communities and autonomous organizations, aiming to promote the stable development of the industry together with entrepreneurs. The company currently focuses on Web 3.0 infrastructure, open finance, decentralized applications and trading ecology track.
Paka
Paka is a DAO fund, founded by members of Stafi, Phala Network, Bifrost, Crust and Litentry. It focuses on incubating and investing in hardcore technical teams, providing technical guidance, seed round investment, strategic planning and more.
Timestamp Capital
Timestamp Capital is a professional token and equity fund for early-stage startups that devote themselves to the blockchain industry. It focuses on blockchain technology studies, market research and providing investing and consulting services.
Incuba Alpha
Incuba Alpha is a crypto fund that empowers talent to build an open digital society.
Oasis Capital
Oasis Capital is a fund focusing on cutting-edge project investment and digital asset management in the crypto world. Based on the technology, knowledge and resource advantages accumulated in the blockchain industry, it is committed to discovering and fostering a group of frontiers that can lead crypto projects to promote the continuous development of the blockchain industry. In addition, Oasis Capital has the ability to vertically integrate from project building to launch and provides multidimensional pre-investment and post-investment services to project parties through integrated marketing and community-building programs.
Kernel Ventures
Kernel Ventures is a tech-driven crypto fund. After years of accumulation, the founding team has not only profound industry research and insight but also a wide range of media and community influence. With rich investment experience, Kernel Ventures is committed to searching and enabling potential blockchain projects. In addition, focusing on open finance, privacy calculus, Web 3.0, etc., Kernel Ventures operates a blockchain eco-base in partnership with some leading players.