Interoperability Protocol Nomad Raises $22M in Seed Round Led by Polychain

Blockchain interoperability protocol Nomad has raised the sum of $22 million in a seed round of funding that was led by Polychain Capital. Nomad also listed 1kx, Ethereal, Hack VC, and Circle Ventures to mention a few as a part of the investors that also participated in the funding round. 

The new capital injection now places the emerging startup at a $225 million valuation and the team said it will use this capital to grow the team, increase awareness of Nomad, and bring security-first interoperability to more ecosystems.

The growth of the broader decentralized ecosystem has led to the emergence of different innovative protocols all resident on different blockchains. Based on this, cross-chain interaction has become a huge necessity to take advantage of the best utility which are not present in any one particular protocol. 

Powering a Secure Bridge Solution

Accessing different protocols is oftentimes facilitated by bridges that help to convert one asset say on the Ethereum blockchain to another on Binance Smart Chain (BSC) for example. Thus far, the design of bridges has been highly flawed and has led to more than $9 billion in hacking in the past 12 months, with the latest being the Ronin Bridge attack which saw over $625 million carted away.

Nomad seeks to put an end to the security challenges faced when using bridges by building a very secure gateway that can be deployed across chains. The latest funding round is a testament to the more than 4 years of development work being put in by 

“Our goal with Nomad is to provide a security-first interoperability solution that can be deployed today. We believe in the vision of fully trustless bridges, but also realize that the market won’t wait for them to arrive. People want to bridge now, and we need to enable them to do it safely,” the interoperable protocol said in its announcement.

Funding for new startups is growing at a very sporadic rate as investors are spreading their tentacles to support the projects they believe will occupy a pivotal position in the future of the Web3.0 ecosystem being envisaged.