ConsenSys Software Inc., which provides a cryptocurrency wallet and development tools for building blockchain applications, has raised a $200 million funding round to support growth initiatives.

The round values ConsenSys at $3.2 billion, the company said in an announcement today. Among the more than half a dozen participants in the round was the venture capital arm of publicly traded Coinbase Global Inc., one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.

ConsenSys provides a broad range of technology products focused primarily on the Ethereum blockchain. The Ethereum blockchain powers ether, the second most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization after Bitcoin.

One of ConsenSys’ most popular products is the MetaMask cryptocurrency wallet for managing digital assets. According to the company, the wallet has 21 million monthly active users. MetaMask is said to have helped process more than $10 billion in trading volume through a feature introduced earlier this year that enables users to swap one cryptocurrency token for another. 

Alongside MetaMask, ConsenSys provides an extensive array of development tools designed to make building blockchain-powered applications easier. 

The company’s Infura development toolkit reduces the amount of effort required to connect an application to the Ethereum network. Additionally, Infura provides features that help software teams track the number of blockchain requests sent by their applications. Developers can use data from Infura to detect usage spikes that require more infrastructure capacity to be provisioned. 

Another ConsenSys offering, Truffle Suite, eases a variety of software engineering tasks ranging from user interface implementation to application testing. Software teams can create their own Ethereum blockchain to support application projects. 

In 2019, ConsenSys introduced a product suite called Codefi aimed at making it easier for organizations such as financial institutions to incorporate blockchain technology into their software systems. Since then, the suite has grown to include more than a half-dozen products. ConsenSys says that Codefi simplifies tasks such as managing digital assets and ensuring regulatory compliance.

The $200 million investment that ConsenSys announced today comes only a few months after the startup closed its previous $65 million funding round. That previous round was backed by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other prominent investors. 

One reason why ConsenSys has drawn such strong investor interest may be the rapid growth of the company’s installed base. ConsenSys said today that its MetaMask cryptocurrency wallet has 21 million users, about 38% more than in 2020. The company’s Infura development toolkit, meanwhile, is used by more than 350,000 developers. 

“The paradigm shift to a world running on decentralized protocols is in full gear,” ConsenSys founder and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Lubin said in a statement. “The pace of adoption is now so rapid that we’ve more than doubled many of our core KPIs since this deal was struck over the summer.”

ConsenSys is the latest in a series of blockchain startups to have secured nine-figure funding rounds over recent weeks. A few days ago, Forte Labs Inc. raised $725 million from a consortium that included Andreessen Horowitz to grow its blockchain platform. Alchemy Insights Inc., which provides tools for building blockchain applications, earlier closed a $250 million funding round.

Image: ConsenSys