Ethcore, an Ethereum-based blockchain developer firm headed by ex-Ethereum CTO Gavin Wood, has received $750,000 in pre-seed capital. The capital was sourced from Blockchain Capital, a fintech investment firm based in San-Francisco, and Fenbushi Capital, a Shanghai-based $50 million investment fund co-founded by Vitalik Buterin.
The release states that Ethcore is already working with banking partners on various applications on the Ethereum blockchain that are tailored to the financial industry:
“Ethcore will be working with global industry leaders to help unleash the immense commercial potential of the Ethereum protocol and is already working alongside BNP Paribas to implement blockchain specific solutions for finance on top of Ethereum technology.”
The Ethcore team will leverage the newly-acquired capital to refine their open-source Ethereum client called Parity, which is being developed in the highly-efficient programming language Rust. The Parity client will essentially allow enterprise and commercial entities to build scalable applications on Ethereum, “We’re glad to have the funding to be able to start looking into how Ethereum can made ready for enterprise.” Dr. Wood told CoinDesk.
While many VC firms are in a race to fund any blockchain startup that pops into existence, very few fintech investment firms have committed capital to Ethereum-based projects. According to Gavin Wood, opening Ethcore to outside funding will allow VC investors to gain exposure to a blockchain project within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Wood explained:
“We really wanted to offer a way into for VC firms, the firms that weren’t heavily vested in an Ethereum, to gain more exposure,”
International payment network SWIFT, release an in-depth report last week examining distributed ledgers, which revealed that SWIFT’s R&D division was already experimenting with the Ethereum blockchain.
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