SenseiNode Raises $3.6M as LatAm’s First Blockchain Infrastructure Firm

SenseiNode, a Latin American blockchain infrastructure firm, raised $3.6 million in a seed funding round led by Borderless Capital, the company said Wednesday.

So far there are no blockchain infrastructure providers in Latin America preventing slashing events and providing constant monitoring for clients such as exchanges and protocol foundations, SenseiNode CEO Pablo Larguía told CoinDesk.

Investors have been pouring capital into firms doing the dirty work of making sure nodes, the computers that keep blockchains up-to-date with the latest transactions, remain fully functional.

Blockdaemon and Alchemy are two of the largest crypto infrastructure firms worldwide. In January, Blockdaemon raised $207 million at a $3.25 billion valuation, while Alchemy became a decacorn after a $200 million equity investment at a $10.2 billion valuation.

Read more: Web 3 Infrastructure Giant Alchemy Tops $10B Valuation in $200M Funding Round

Over the past six months SenseiNode ran tests of its services and deployed 50 nodes with 11 blockchains, including Ethereum, Algorand, Solana, Polkadot and Avalanche, Larguía said. In 2022 the company plans to deploy more than 500 nodes in the region, with a major focus on Brazil and Mexico, followed by Argentina and Colombia, he added.

Fewer than 1% of nodes worldwide are based in Latin America, Larguía said, based on Ethereum statistics as of March 31. While the U.S. has 2,459, the region’s largest country, Brazil, counts only 29. The dearth of nodes, especially as Web 3 usage climbs in the region, is striking.

According to Larguía, in places like the U.S. the majority of nodes are hosted on services provided by Amazon or Microsoft, hampering the decentralization of blockchain infrastructure.

By contrast, Latin America has a “super fragmented” data center industry, providing the region with “a great competitive advantage,” Larguía said. He added that SenseiNode is already in talks with the main Latin American data center companies.

SenseiNode “is likely” to raise a Series A funding round in the course of 2022, Larguía said.