Ethereum Push Notification Service Raises $10M at $131M Valuation
The company hopes to address the lack of cross-blockchain communication with easy messaging tools.
Apr 14, 2022 at 1:57 p.m. UTC:format(webp)/downloads.coindesk.com/arc/failsafe/placeholders/16x9.png)
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One of the major pain points in the crypto user experience (UX) is the lack of cross-blockchain communication. Ethereum Push Notification Service (EPNS), a communication protocol hoping to solve that problem, has raised $10.1 million in a Series A funding round at a $131 million valuation.
Jump Crypto led the round with participation from Tiger Global, ParaFi, Sino Global Capital, Polygon Studios and Harmony Foundation, among others.
The EPNS protocol enables on-chain communications with the ability to opt-in for permissionless channel notifications and subscriptions. Instead of using usernames to connect as on Discord or Twitter, EPNS relies on a user’s on-chain identifier. Since launching in January, EPNS says the protocol has powered 4 million notifications sent to more than 44,000 subscribers.
“We have a very aggressive plan to get to a million users,” EPNS founder Harsh Rajat told CoinDesk in an interview.
EPNS currently provides on-chain notifications for CoinDesk media alerts, Ethereum Naming Service (ENS) domain expirations, Snapshot governance updates and Oasis vault liquidations, among other services.
EPNS will use the funding to expand its team and develop on blockchains beyond Ethereum. The protocol is already in testnet on Polygon and plans to launch on BNB Chain, Harmony and an unspecified non-Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chain by the end of the year, said Rajat. The company also plans to launch wallet-to-wallet communication in the third quarter.
“A user on any blockchain should be able to receive a notification from any other service they use on any blockchain,” Rajat explained.
“As Web 3 power users, Sino Global Capital faces the difficulty of monitoring numerous DeFi, gaming and governance platforms and proposals,” said Sino Global Capital CEO Matthew Graham in a statement. “EPNS solves a huge pain point for us and fellow Web 3 product users by creating and consolidating notifications into an easy-to-use dashboard with fantastic UI/UX.”
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Brandy covered crypto-related venture capital deals for CoinDesk.