Web3 product development studio Pontem has successfully raised $6 million in its latest financing round, with participation from prominent investors such as Faction and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The funding will be used by Pontem to empower developers in building apps that are compatible with both the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and Move blockchain. This move aims to expand the usage of the Move programming language beyond the Aptos and Sui blockchains.
According to Pontem co-founder Alejo Pint, the influx of capital will be utilized to increase the adoption of Move beyond its current scope, providing dapp teams with a programming language that supports the necessary security and scalability for mass adoption. Pontem aims to solve the issue of vendor lock-in on the Ethereum network, enabling Web2 developers to more confidently enter the Web3 space.
With Faction and Lightspeed Venture Partners co-leading the financing round, Pantera Capital, Aptos Foundation, Wintermute, Altonomy, Shima Capital, and Kraken Ventures also participated. The investment brings Pontem’s total raised capital to $10.5 million, following a previous funding round in June 2021.
Pontem’s technology, initially developed by members of the Aptos team, revolves around the Move programming language, which is designed to create secure and efficient smart contracts. Unlike the Solidity language used by the EVM, Move aims to improve throughput through parallel processing. Pontem believes that Move is particularly appealing to Web2 developers from traditional finance and tech sectors because of its similarity to existing static-type languages.
The funds raised will be dedicated to building Move Virtual Machine products on EVM-compatible blockchains, including Lumio, a Layer 2 solution based on optimistic rollup technology. Lumio leverages alternative Layer 1 blockchains like Aptos to process transactions on the Ethereum network. Pontem claims that its products deployed on Aptos, such as the Pontem Wallet and Liquidswap DEX, have already attracted 40,000 weekly active users and generate up to $1 million in daily trading volume.
In addition to Ethereum, Pontem also plans to support the Solana Virtual Machine and other blockchain languages in the future.
It is important to note that Evgeny Gaevoy, the founder and CEO of Wintermute, previously served on the board of directors for The Block, a major media outlet covering the crypto industry. The Block, an independent news source, discloses the involvement of Foresight Ventures as a majority investor and the anchoring role of crypto exchange Bitget for Foresight Ventures.
In summary, Pontem’s recent $6 million funding round will facilitate the expansion of Ethereum and Move-compatible apps, empowering developers with a versatile programming language that promotes security and scalability. By addressing the issue of vendor lock-in, Pontem aims to foster greater confidence among Web2 developers transitioning into Web3. With additional support for alternative blockchains, Pontem is poised to play a pivotal role in the future of decentralized development.
