If we take a look at the last State of Blockchain report, which was released this week, we can see that VC funding of blockchain startups has peaked in Q4, year after year, in a consistent basis.
However, what the report doesn’t really show is the nature of those investments; it becomes visible only if things are looked at from a distance and when the most recent financial rounds are included.
25 investments have come to the light in the last year half, all in blockchain startups. Some of them have been considerable, with 5 of them totaling over 10 million dollars.
But that isn’t even the most fascinating part: 9 out of those 10 large scale investments were startups that utilize the multi-blockchain business model. This is a considerable jump when compared to the last year (there were none).
When it comes down to the latest investment, $24 million, put directly into Align Commerce, a payments platform. It plans to utilize the assets for rebranding (the new name will be Veem); it also plans to widen its specter of operations.
If everything goes according to plan, Veem plans a transition from a ‘pure play’ to a ‘multichain’ service.
Before Veem, we had Bitfury – which managed to obtain 30 million dollars in January. Initially it was a bitcoin mining hardware producer, but it quickly transitioned into blockchain services provider. Recently, it has announced a joint project that will involve both private blockchains and bitcoin.
Now, regarding Polychain, it’s exactly what it says on the tin. It earned a hefty 10 million dollar amount, and this sum, the hedge fund has set it mind the idea of investing in blockchain tokens.
The fascinating story comes from a startup PayCommerce; already 10 years old, it raised 22 million just for the purpose of exploring blockchains. Currently, and due to their research, their business model combines both centralized and decentralized systems.
Now, all of them, truth be told, were ‘pure plays’ – Bitt, Blockstream, Digital Asset Holdings and Align Commerce. This leads us to an interesting conclusion that the fine line separating different technologies is slowly vanishing. It seems that more and more people are realizing it, and that in such a young branch, it is smart to have more options under your sleeve.
When it comes to bitcoin companies, it means that these companies better accept that the structural problems they currently have and may have in the future may end up unsolvable; however, the technical improvements in the blockchains themselves can show some tempting alternatives to the problem.
However, please bear in mind that the sample size isn’t all that great – despite that, the funding rounds for the months to come are more likely than not to affirm the current trend: the focus on business models that join the best aspects of both blockchains and the famed geographical diversification.
Based on everything that has been outlined so far, what do you personally think about the state and history of some of the biggest blockchain-related investments made on the industry? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.