Binance Labs lead $60 million investment for Multichain

Binance Labs, the investment arm of the prominent cryptocurrency giant Binance has led an investment round of $60 million for Multichain, an industry-leading cross-chain protocol.

The funds raised from the venture capital and incubation arm of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange will be used by Multichain to support its ecosystem and its internal teams, including R&D, audit, and service, according to its official blog post.

Apart from Binance Labs, the round also witnessed the participation of other co-investors which included, Sequoia China, IDG Capital, Three Arrows Capital, DeFiance Capital, Circle Ventures, Tron Foundation, Hypersphere Ventures, Primitive Ventures, Magic Ventures, and HashKey.

What is Multichain?

For the uninitiated, Multichain is a cross-chain protocol (CRP) and aims to be the most popular router for Web 3. Formerly known as Anyswap, the platform was founded as a cross-chain decentralized exchange.

However, in order to create a strong brand positioning in the market and provide the platform’s users with better cross-chain services, it was relaunched as Multichain, with a focus on infrastructure for arbitrary cross-chain interactions.

Multichain provides interconnecting infrastructure for many public blockchains which includes Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, Moonriver among others.

Zhaojun, the Co-founder of Multichain, said in a statement that the cross-chain infrastructure helps to connect public blockchains and crypto-assets with lower transaction fees, shorter bridging time, and higher security levels. The exec further went on to add,

“Aligning with our plan to improve Web3, Multichain will integrate NFT Cross-Chain Bridge and our new any Call solution for arbitrary cross-chain contract calls, supporting innovative NFT and DeFi DApps in cross-chain ecosystems. We will remain on the frontline of cross-chain research,” 

Features of the investment

The investment will also see Multichain in a stronger partnership with Binance Smart Chain (BSC). The smart chain platform will help bridge crypto-assets, like bTokens to move across networks and will help Multichain to delve deeper with better technology and liquidity integration.

The fundraiser will help grow the Multichain teams and ecosystem which includes expanding the R&D team, especially the crypto algorithm research team, the security Audit team, and the Service team who helps new users and blockchain ecosystems integrate with Multichain. Peter Huo, Investment Director at Binance Labs, stated,

“Multichain is a key contributor to the multi-chain future for crypto. We are excited to deepen our partnership with Multichain and work closely with the team to build out our shared vision.”

The latest development comes two weeks after Binance Labs announced leading a $1.5 million seed round for Bulletin Board System (BBS) Network.