NASD Raises $3.3M Seed Round for Asset Issuer Chain Noble

NASD Inc., the company behind Noble, an asset issuance chain built for communication between blockchains, has raised $3.3 million in a seed round.

The raise was led by Polychain Capital and included Borderless Capital, Circle Ventures and Wintermute Ventures, among others.

Noble was created for native asset issuance in Cosmos and is part of the inter-blockchain communication protocol (IBC) that helps transport data between blockchains. IBC also allows users to exchange assets directly with each other.

“Noble brings a trust foundation for asset issuers looking to take advantage of the abundance of opportunity and growth in the Cosmos and IBC ecosystem,” said Karthik Raju, general partner at Polychain Capital.

Noble’s first issuance partner is Circle, and in September, native USDC in Cosmos was launched, allowing IBC-enabled chains to access that stablecoin natively issued on Noble. So far, over 6 million USDC has been issued on Noble since that inception.

"It’s exciting to see Noble establishing a foundational role in the Cosmos ecosystem for native asset issuance, starting with the recent launch of Circle's USDC and the upcoming deployment of Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP),” said Wyatt Lonergan, principal at Circle Ventures.

Noble is also set to be the first non-EVM based blockchain to be supported by Circle’s cross-chain (CCTP) which is an on-chain program that facilitates USDC transfers between supported blockchains.