Venture Capital • March 8, 2022, 12:00PM EST
UPDATED: March 8, 2022, 11:36AM EST

Web3 infrastructure startup WalletConnect raises $11 million in Series A funding

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The Block

WalletConnect, a web3 infrastructure startup that allows users to connect crypto wallets with decentralized applications via QR codes, has raised $11 million in a Series A funding round.

Union Square Ventures and 1kx co-led the round, with Coinbase Ventures, Semantic Ventures, Zerion and others participating. Angel investors including Alex Svanevik, Eric Conner, Arjun Bhuptani, Viktor Bunin, Mara Schmiedt, Anna Rose and Ajit Tripathi also backed the round.

This was an equity funding round and will help WalletConnect become a decentralized web3 messaging layer, the project's founder, Pedro Gomes, told The Block. To that end, WalletConnect is building two new protocols — a direct messaging protocol and a push notification protocol.

The messaging protocol will allow all WalletConnect-enabled wallet users to communicate with each other and the push notification protocol will allow users to stay up-to-date with all blockchain activity for DeFi, DAO and NFT applications directly from their wallets, said Gomes.

WalletConnect also plans to launch its own token for its decentralization efforts. "The token launch is what will enable our infrastructure and other service providers to interoperate the messaging network with low latency and high availability," said Gomes.

With decentralization, WalletConnect's code — which is currently mostly in the public domain — will become entirely open-source, Gomes said. 

To meet its developmental plans, WalletConnect is also looking to double its current team size to about 24 by the end of the year, according to Gomes. 

Gomes said WalletConnect's current closest competitor on Ethereum is WalletLink. But while WalletLink only integrates with Coinbase Wallet, WalletConnect can be used with more than 100 different types of wallet across multiple blockchain networks.

The Series A round brings WalletConnect's total funding to date to $12.25 million. It raised $1.25 million in a seed round led by 1kx in April 2021.