Blockchain Chip Startup Raises $70M

A startup that designs high-performance chips to handle the demands of blockchain technology today announced it had raised $70 million in Series C funding.

It currently has over 100 employees, and says the new funding will allow it to expand its team of engineers, roll out its first chip, and develop its second.

Chain Reaction, founded in Israel in January 2019, said it had previously raised $45 million of investment while still in “stealth mode”.

It says it accelerates compute performance, enabling companies that rely on big data to adopt and scale solutions to the world’s most complex problems in blockchain and privacy technologies. Among them are financial institutions, healthcare, big pharma, defense, governments, and oil and gas.

“Enabling real time compute on encrypted data is the holy grail of cloud computing. Chain Reaction is on the cusp of making this a reality by accelerating PETs, (privacy enhancing technologies ),” said Alon Webman, CEO of Chain Reaction.

“Our technology will enable enterprise and government to modernize compute infrastructure by moving private data to the cloud.”

In a statement the company said: “The round will expedite deployment of enterprise-grade blockchain solutions – Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) and systems.”

“It will also scale Chain Reaction’s privacy tech solutions involving the design of cloud data center infrastructure to accelerate PETs.”

The funding round was led by Morgan Creek Digital. Mark Yusko, its CEO, said: “We fully expect Chain Reaction’s blockchain products will become the new industry standard in blockchain compute infrastructure, laying the foundation for all future sustainable blockchain technologies.”