Blockchain development platform QuickNode has raised $5.3 million in a seed funding round led by Seven Seven Six, a VC firm created by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
Softbank’s Opportunity Fund, Arrington XRP Capital, Crossbeam, Anthony Pompliano and more also participated.
The Miami-based startup, which has been building a Web 3 cloud platform to enable developers to more easily develop blockchain apps, will use the funding to expand its product range and provide more tools as cryptocurrency adoption continues to accelerate, said Dmitry Shklovsky, QuickNode co-founder.
The company is hiring new engineering and tech talent too, “to build a more high-performance, reliable service for our customers,” Shklovsky told CoinDesk.
Currently, QuickNode supports six blockchain networks – Ethereum, Bitcoin, xDai, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain and Optimistic Ethereum – with several more said to be in the pipeline.
Customers using the platform range from developers building non-fungible token (NFT) projects to large institutions managing billions of dollars in crypto assets, according to the firm. Notable clients include DappRadar, Curve (acquired by PayPal in early March) and NFT platform Rarible.
Ohanian’s ‘picks-and-shovels play’
In an interview with CoinDesk, Ohanian said that since becoming an early investor in Coinbase nine years ago, crypto and blockchain technology have come a long way.
“We have seen a huge boom in great developer teams that want to get started and build. QuickNode fills a really important [gap in the market] … as more and more teams are building on the blockchain,” he said.
The Reddit co-founder described QuickNode as a “foundational technology” firm and a “picks-and-shovels play” from an investment perspective.
“Just like how Web 2 couldn’t have happened without cloud services like AWS, QuickNode will be the infrastructure for Web 3,” said Ohanian. “Having been an investor in crypto for nearly a decade myself, Seven Seven Six is very motivated to support startups lining themselves up to be the foundation of the new internet.”