a16z leads $40 million raise for crypto protocol Golden

Golden, a crypto firm building a data protocol with web3 tools, raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by a16z crypto, bringing the total amount raised to date to $60 million.

Other participants in the round include Solana co-founder Raj Gokal, Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi and Postmates founder Bastian Lehmann, the company announced Monday. Also among the investors was Matt Bellamy, the lead singer of rock band Muse and a partner at Helium-3 Ventures. 

Ali Yahya, a general partner at a16z, will also be joining the board and sitting alongside current board member and a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen, the company said.

The funding will help the company's efforts to build a platform that it says centralizes data using technologies and mechanics from Web3. The protocol financially rewards correct data and disincentives incorrect data, with the use of tokens.

It's now in a testnet phase, with 35,000 individuals submitting facts and validating information, via the Discord community, a live decentralized app, APIs and early governance in action. The protocol is expected to go live on the mainnet in the second quarter of 2023.

"This is not simply a ‘web3 Wikipedia,’" the company said. "Having accurate data in a deeply-linked knowledge graph allows for the creation of new applications and insights that are not currently possible."