Decentralized open-source platform raises $12 million in fundraise led by Galaxy, NFX

Layer 1s • February 18, 2021, 10:18AM EST
The Block

Radicle, a peer-to-peer platform for coding collaboration, announced Thursday the launch of a governance token on the heels of a $12 million fundraise.

Led by NFX and Galaxy Digital, the fundraise is the project's third round of financing. Other investors include Placeholder, Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, and Meltem Demirors.

Similar to code hosting platforms like GitHub or Gitlab, Radicle offers a hub for developers to tinker with open-source code. Still, the decentralized nature of Radicle could solve some of the problems associated with firms like GitHub, including potential censorship and single-point-of-failure security risks, says NFX general partner Morgan Beller.

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The fresh cash injection will help the team to expand upon its core protocols and user experience as it looks to woo developers in the decentralized finance and Web3 ecosystems, according to a statement shared with The Block.

Already, Radicle has lined up more than 1,000 projects since launching its beta in December. The new governance token could serve as a mechanism to incentivize developers to contribute to its codebase. 

"The release of its native governance token, makes Radicle the first open-source, community-led, and self-sustaining network for software collaboration," the startup said in a press statement. " The network’s code and treasury of assets are publicly managed fully in the open allowing any developer to contribute and influence the direction of the project, making Radicle an experiment in collective governance."

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