Blockchain Startup Chia Nabs $500 Million Valuation, Eyes IPO

Chia Network Inc., a blockchain and digital foreign money platform based by BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen, has greater than doubled its valuation after elevating $61 million from buyers together with Richmond International Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz.

The San Francisco-based firm was valued at about $500 million within the funding spherical, an individual with information of the matter stated. Breyer Capital, Gradual Ventures, True Ventures, Cygni Capital, Naval Ravikant, Collab+Foreign money and DHVC additionally participated in spherical.

“We need to make digital foreign money simpler to make use of than money,” Gene Hoffman, Chia’s president and chief working officer, stated in an interview. He known as the recent funding “rocket gas” for hiring and accelerating the corporate’s ambition to turn out to be a buying and selling and cost system utilized by governments, banks and different establishments.

Read more: Hard-Drive Makers Soar Thanks to BitTorrent Creator’s New Coin

Hoffman stated the corporate is trying to a conventional preliminary public providing as quickly as this 12 months, though a merger with the “proper” particular objective acquisition firm is a chance.

“Our purpose has at all times been to go public comparatively rapidly as that can considerably make clear our regulatory setting and permit prospects to make use of foreign money to hedge public market volatility, which is completely different from different cash,” Hoffman stated.

Chia calls itself eco-friendly, saying its operations are much less energy-intensive than conventional mining. The agency is is now the most important storage-related blockchain, practically double Filecoin, Hoffman stated.

Richmond International Ventures managing companion David Frazee stated the Chia coin is auditable, safe and regulatorily compliant, making it user-friendly for financial authorities and multinationals.

“Chia is what Bitcoin would seem like if it was designed with information from the final 13 years,” he stated. Frazee is becoming a member of Chia’s board and personally invested within the firm in 2018.

— With help by Michelle F Davis, and Katie Roof