DFINITY Raise $61m in Private Funding Round -$40m for Ecosystem Venture Fund
DFINITY is a project that is aiming to build a cloud computing resource that utilizes public decentralized networks to host a virtual computer with near infinite scalability. The platform is managed by a built in artificial intelligence that can carry out tasks autonomously such as mitigating misuse, protecting users, fixing problems, optimizing network configuration and upgrade protocols.
The team have a wide range of applications in mind, including decentralized search engines and email hosting. So, understandably, there is a great deal of hype surrounding the project, with CoinDesk describing it as ”on the cutting edge of computer science”. Many are eagerly awaiting the DFINITY ICO, but after the announcement of a private funding round on February 7th, it looks like investors could be waiting a little longer.
The private round of funding saw DFINITY join up with silicon valley based venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz and crypto hedge fund Polychain Capital to raise a total of $61 million. Combined with the initial $40 million generated in the first seed round in February 2017, the project is now backed by a fund in excess of $100 million. Bare in mind, this is before any pre-sale or traditional ICO have taken place.
Of the $61 million raised, $21 million will go toward the development of the underlying DFINITY network, whilst the remaining $41 million will be assigned to the Ecosystem Venture Fund. The purpose of which will be similar to the IOTA Ecosystem Fund, providing investment for community projects and development.
What about the ICO?
The announcement went on to to discuss the details of the highly anticipated ICO, touching on the legal and regulatory complications. The long and short of it being there will definitely be a pre-sale taking place as soon as possible, although the KYC and AML procedures will be particularly stringent. However, they also said the public ICO may or may not happen:
The second round may or may not happen, and will be termed the “ICO”. We would like this to be run by regulated traditional exchanges at the moment the network goes live, setting a new milestone in the sale of utility tokens powering decentralized networks.
So it looks like investors will be waiting a little longer before knowing whether they will be able to contribute to the DFINITY project! We will be sure to post any new developments, so stay tuned for updates.
