Etherealize, a New York City-based startup that makes products and infrastructure to help institutions use Ethereum, raised $40 million in a latest funding round. The funding round was led by Electric Capital and Paradigm, two longtime crypto venture capitalists. Vitalik Buterin, one of the founders of Ethereum, and the Ethereum Foundation, a nonprofit that works to improve the protocol, also provided Etherealize with initial funding to get started.
As per the official release, the firm plans to use capital to strengthen its position, grow its operations, and improve its development approach. With this push, the team aims to build a zero-knowledge (zk) privacy infrastructure for tokenized assets trading, a settlement engine optimized for institutional tokenization workflows, and a suite of applications to bring utility and liquidity to tokenized fixed income markets.
In a statement given to Fortune, Vivek Raman, CEO of Etherealize said that the company raised funds for equity and token options. He added, “After hundreds of conversations with banks and institutions, one thing is clear: the future of finance will be built on Ethereum. This funding allows us to accelerate the development of institutional-grade infrastructure that rewires Wall Street with Ethereum as its invisible backbone. We’re proud to not only be a leading voice for Ethereum on Wall Street, but to also be an engineering powerhouse driving the next wave of institutional blockchain adoption.”
Since its launch in January, Etherealize has engaged with several banks, asset managers, and payment networks to shape product development and bring new tokenized assets onto Ethereum. Furthermore, the firm has also conducted research that helped Ethereum position itself as an institutional-grade reserve asset.
It also led to SEC, Treasury, and Congressional engagements in drafting memos that informed digital asset regulation and testifying before the House Financial Services Committee on the CLARITY Act.
Increasing Inclination towards Ethereum
For the past few months, Ethereum has continued to outshine Bitcoin and investors are shifting funds from Bitcoin to Ethereum, a phenomenon in the crypto space known as capital rotation.
In August, U.S. spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds saw strong inflows, recording $2.8 billion. Moreover, corporate trading in Ether also exceeded Bitcoin treasury trading, reflecting rising institutional interest.
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