Layer 1 blockchain developer Berachain raises $100 million in Series B funding

Quick Take

  • Framework Ventures and the Abu Dhabi branch of Brevan Howard Digital co-led Berachain’s $100 million Series B round. 
  • Other participants include Polychain Capital, Hack VC, Samsung Next, Laser Digital from Nomura Group, Hashkey Capital, Nomad Capital and others. 

Framework Ventures and the Abu Dhabi branch of Brevan Howard Digital (BH Digital) co-led a $100 million Series B round for Layer 1 blockchain developer Berachain. 

Additional financial support came from Polychain Capital, Hack VC, Samsung Next, Laser Digital from Nomura Group, Hashkey Capital, Nomad Capital, Hypersphere, Arrington Capital, Cypher Capital, Tribe Capital, Rubik, Dragonfly’s Bo Feng, Animoca Brands’ Yat Siu, Temasek’s Antony Lewis, Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal and others, Berachain wrote on the social media platform X. 

The firm intends to use the funds to bolster expansion in Hong Kong, Singapore, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa, reports Bloomberg, adding that Berachain's testnet processed over 100 million transactions. Investors used a simple agreement for future tokens (SAFT) to fund Berachain. 

On April 20, 2023, Berachain raised $42 million in a private token round led by Polychain Capital, along with participation from Hack VC, Shima Capital, Robot Ventures and others, The Block previously reported. The firm's Series B co-lead, BH Digital, maintains $1.7 billion in assets under management. 

Berachain's ecosystem

Berachain is a modular Layer 1 blockchain undergirded by a "proof of liquidity" consensus mechanism, which is a way to verify the liquidity available for certain assets on-chain.

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Berachain has its governance token, BGT, a gas token, BERA and its native consensus collateralized stablecoin, HONEY. Users can only obtain BGT by performing certain tasks within the Layer 1's ecosystem, such as providing liquidity on Berachain's decentralized exchange BEX. BGT can then be swapped for the USD-pegged HONEY, using BERA to pay transaction fees. 

Berachain is also compatible with Ethereum ETH -3.70% Virtual Machine (EVM), an Ethereum-specific runtime environment that determines the parameters for "computing a new valid state from block to block," according to Ethereum developer documentation. Berachain is built on top of Cosmos SDK, a tech stack for building public proof-of-stake blockchains. 

 

Update: Apri. 12, 15:42 UTC. Removes reference to prior reporting surrounding speculation on Berachain's raise and valuation.


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About Author

MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.

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