Immutable Raises $60M to Scale NFTs on Ethereum

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Immutable, the team behind the first Layer 2 scaling solution for NFTs on Ethereum, has raised $60 million in a Series B funding round co-led by BITKRAFT Ventures and King River Capital.

Immutable Aims for Mainstream NFT Adoption

Immutable has raised $60 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its total funding to $77.5 million.

The raise was co-led by BITKRAFT Ventures and King River Capital, with participation from Alameda Research, Prosus Ventures, Galaxy Interactive, Fabric Ventures, AirTree Ventures, Reinventure, Apex Capital, and VaynerFund.

Immutable will reportedly use the funds to expand its global engineering and sales teams, strengthen key partnerships with gaming companies, and scale the growth of its in-house NFT games, Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians.

Immutable’s flagship product is Immutable X, the first NFT-focused Layer 2 scaling solution on Ethereum. The protocol uses StarkWare’s ZK-Rollup, a zero-knowledge-based rollup solution offering up to 9,000 transactions per second, instant trade confirmations, instant withdrawals to Ethereum, and zero gas fees without compromising on security. Rollups adopt the security of Ethereum, while sidechains such as Polygon have their own security properties and consensus mechanism.

Immutable X is also carbon-neutral, something that’s become a pertinent issue within the NFT space this year. As the technology has gained wider mainstream attention, many critics have raised concerns about the environmental impact of minting NFTs on energy-intensive Proof-of-Work blockchains like Ethereum. To offset the environmental cost, Immutable has pledged to buy carbon credits until 2025, after which Ethereum is expected to have merged to the more environmentally-friendly Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism.

Immutable is aiming to empower the NFT economy by alleviating the costs associated with it. Minting NFTs on Ethereum can be prohibitively expensive during peak periods of congestion, pricing out most retail investors. With Immutable X, Ethereum users are able to mint and trade NFTs instantly without paying a fee. 

Commenting on the raise, Immutable co-founder Robbie Ferguson said: 

“NFT trading is a terrible mainstream user experience right now. It’s expensive, illiquid, and the only existing scaling solutions compromise on the most important thing: the security and user base of Ethereum. We want businesses to create their game, marketplace, or NFT application within hours via APIs, with a mainstream user experience. No blockchain programming required.”

“Immutable is an exciting business, with a first-class management team, and transformative technology at the center of a rapidly evolving market,” added Zeb Rice, a founding partner at King River Capital. 

Immutable is responsible for launching one of blockchain’s most successful games, Gods Unchained, and is currently working on scaling the largest NFT marketplace on Ethereum, OpenSea. The project is also in the process of launching its own governance and utility token, IMX.

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