The winner of Polkadot’s third parachain auction, Astar Network, has raised $22 million in its latest strategic funding round. The project will use this money to develop interoperability between Ethereum and Polkadot native smart contracts.

Astar Network receives a large investment

Astar announced on Friday that its strategic funding round of $22 million closed well. Polychain Capital led the investment along with other venture capital firms including Alameda Research, Alchemy Ventures and Crypto.com Capital. Several big-name angel investors have also joined, including Polkadot creator Gavin Wood and Japanese soccer player Keisuke Honda.

This is the second major round of fundraising for Astar Network. The last time in June 2021, the project raised US$10 million from Fenbushi Capital, OKX Ventures and Huobi Capital. Since Astar Network is being developed by Singapore-based Stake Technologies, most of its previous contributors are Asia-based companies. In a press release, Astar explained that the latest strategy round aims to increase geographic reach by attracting US investors and strategic partners.

Astar Network is the first multi-chain smart contract platform on Polkadot. The protocol allows Ethereum and Polkadot to coexist and communicate with native smart contracts, supporting Ethereum developers looking to build on top of Polkadot.

Astar also supports multiple bridging with other Layer 1 networks. Currently, Astar supports connectivity to Celer Network and Nomad via a multi-chain bridge, with the Cosmos bridge expected to be operational in Q1 2022. Proceeds from today will go towards advancing Astar’s vision of a multi-chain future.

After the first round of Polkadot parachain auctions ended in December, the winners began going live on the network. Moonbeam was the first project to go live on January 11th, while Astar Network was on January 17th. As Parachains on Polkadot started building their platform and products, interest from institutional investors is likely to increase.

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