Blockchain-free decentralization platform Nillion raises $20 million
Quick Take
- Nillion, which raised $20 million, wants to decentralize data transfers and storage through novel mathematic applications — without using blockchains.
- Distributed Global led the funding round with additional participation from Big Brain Holdings, Chapter One, Hashkey and over 150 others.
Nillion, a startup building a decentralization platform without a blockchain, raised $20 million in seed funding.
Investment firm Distributed Global led the round, and Big Brain Holdings, Chapter One, GSR, HashKey, OP Crypto and SALT Fund were among the more than 150 investors. The company's team includes founding team members from Uber, Indiegogo and Hedera Hashgraph, as well as leaders from Coinbase and Nike.
The project is based on a mathematical innovation invented by cryptography professor Miguel de Vega called Nil Message Compute.
"Nillion could open a new universe of use cases blockchain never imagined," David Gan, founder and general partner of OP Crypto, said in a statement. "What proof-of-work did for blockchain, I think NMC may do for multi-party computation as a technology."
While decentralized file storage isn't new, many existing protocols such as Filecoin and IPFS use blockchains. Nillion will enable "the fragmentation and dispersion of data across the Nillion network of nodes which creates privacy while still allowing the underlying data to be computed on quickly." Unlike blockchain technology, Nillion's network nodes do not need to communicate with each other to store transaction data.
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