Why JPMorgan, UBS, Mastercard Invested $65M In Ethereum Infrastructure Company ConsenSys

ConsenSys, the leading Ethereum ETH/USD software development company, has raised a $65 million funding round with investment from leading financial services firms like JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM, Mastercard Inc MA, and UBS Group AG UBS.

What Happened: These firms were joined by leading blockchain companies like Protocol Labs, the Maker Foundation, and Alameda Research, along with some high-profile venture capital funds that included Greater Bay Area Homeland Development Fund, CMT Digital, and Liberty City Ventures.

“When we set out to raise a round, it was important to us to patiently construct a diverse cap table, consistent with our belief that similar to how the web developed, the whole economy would join the revolutionaries on a next-generation protocol,” said ConsenSys founder Joseph Lubin in a press release. Lubin was also one of the original eight founding members of Ethereum.

“We are proud to partner with preeminent financial firms alongside leading crypto companies to further converge the centralized and decentralized financial domains at this particularly exciting time of growth for ConsenSys and the entire industry,” he said.

See also: How to Buy Ethereum (ETH)

Why It Matters: According to the release, the latest round of funding is aimed at “accelerating the convergence of traditional and centralized finance,” a theme that has emerged after several global financial institutions showed a keen interest in blockchain and crypto.

Last year, ConsenSys acquired JPMorgan’s enterprise blockchain platform Quorum, which it operates in addition to its ERC-20 token-focused crypto wallet MetaMask, and Ethereum node Infura, which ConsenSys describes as “the secret weapon of Ethereum infrastructure.”

“Enterprise Ethereum is a key infrastructure on which we and our partners are building payment and non-payment applications to power the future of commerce,” said Raj Dhamodharan, Executive Vice President of Digital Asset and Blockchain Products and Partnerships at Mastercard.

Mike Dargan, Head of Group Technology at UBS, also commented on the partnership. “Our investment in ConsenSys adds proven expertise in distributed ledger technology to our UBS Next portfolio. This investment underscores our commitment to working with fintechs and the broader tech ecosystem to shape the future of banking for the benefits of our clients.”