(Bloomberg) — Backers of the Avalanche platform used for creating blockchain networks and decentralized applications started Blizzard, a fund of about $220 million dedicated to accelerating development, growth and innovation across the ecosystem for the protocol.
The Avalanche Foundation, set up to support the blockchain’s development, officially launched the fund. Other contributors to Blizzard include Avalanche creator Ava Labs, Polychain Capital, Three Arrows Capital, Dragonfly Capital, CMS Holdings, Republic Capital, R/Crypto Fund and Collab+Currency, according to a statement.
The total value of investor funds on the protocol has risen to more than $8.4 billion on Oct. 27 from about $312 million as of Aug. 18, according to tracker Defi Llama. Avalanche’s AVAX token is down about 6% in the past 30 days, but it’s gained more than 1,600% over 12 months, according to CoinGecko pricing.
“The last two months have shown incredible growth across Avalanche, with users, assets, and applications joining the community in record-highs,” said Emin Gün Sirer, creator of Avalanche and director of the Avalanche Foundation, in the statement. “Blizzard will play a key role in further accelerating this growth.”
Avalanche launched in September 2020 and now has over 320 projects building on the platform, according to the statement, including decentralized finance (DeFi) projects like Tether, SushiSwap, Chainlink, Circle and The Graph. This past September the foundation said it received a $230 million investment from a group led by Polychain and Three Arrows, through the private sale of AVAX.
Read more: Avalanche Raises $230 Million From Sale of Surging Crypto Token
“The fund will participate in equity investments and token purchases in these projects, but it’s support for portfolio projects doesn’t end with a check,” said John Wu, president of Ava Labs, in an email Monday. “Blizzard will help projects accelerate their technology and partnership efforts across the Avalanche ecosystem.”
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