Polygon Raises $450M From Sequoia Capital India, Galaxy, SoftBank to Support Web 3 Plans

Polygon, a secondary scaling solution for the Ethereum blockchain, raised $450 million in a round of funding led by Sequoia Capital India to support the firm’s Web 3 plans.

• The round included funding from 40 venture capital firms, including SoftBank, Michael Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital, Tiger Global, Republic Capital and hedge fund manager Alan Howard as well as Kevin O'Leary of ABC's "Shark Tank."
• The funding will be used to build Web 3 applications, including Polygon PoS, Polygon Edge and Polygon Avail, which are similar to Amazon Web Services’ offerings for Web 2 developers, Polygon said in a statement.
• The funds were raised through a private sale of Polygon's native MATIC token, which surged after the funding was reported by CNBC on Monday. As of press time, the MATIC price was up 17% in 24 hours to $1.98, based on CoinDesk data. The market capitalization is now about $20 billion.
• Polygon is also investing in zero-knowledge technology that it said will be key to onboarding the next billion users to Ethereum.
• There has been growing interest in Web 3, which is the third generation of internet services and has been made possible by decentralized networks.
• "Web 3 builds on the early Internet's open-source ideals, enabling users to create the value, control the network and reap the rewards," Polygon co-founder Sandeep Naiwal said in the statement. "Ethereum, scaled by Polygon, will be the bedrock of this next stage in the Web's evolution."
• The fundraising is the project's first major financing round since it was founded in 2017.

Read more: What Is Web 3 and Why Is Everyone Talking About It?

UPDATE (Feb. 7, 16:00 UTC): Adds MATIC price reaction in third bullet point.

UPDATE (Feb. 7, 16:08 UTC): Adds token sale in second bullet, moves price reaction.