Cardano Ecosystem Receives $100M to Fund DeFi, NFTs

Emurgo has announced it will contribute $100 million to a fund focused on DeFi, NFTs, and education for the Cardano blockchain.

Emurgo to Support Cardano Ecosystem

Emurgo, the commercial arm of Cardano, will invest $100 million to finance crypto startups on the blockchain.

The firm announced the update at Cardano Summit 2021. Under the initiative, Emurgo will allocate capital towards growing Cardano’s ecosystem. The firm will focus on supporting startups working in DeFi and NFTs, and launch Cardano-centric education programs.

Discussing the investment, Emurgo founder and CEO Ken Kodama said that the firm was aiming to “accelerate the development of the Cardano ecosystem.”

Emurgo has already invested in several Cardano projects, including the EVM-compatible sidechain Milkomeda.

Since launching the Alonzo era, the project has made strides to focus on its ecosystem development. The Alonzo hardfork enabled smart contract functionality on the network, which paves the way for project to launch their dApps on mainnet.

It is thought that DeFi projects will go live on the network once teams have developed scaling solutions to adapt to Cardano’s eUTXO model. Cardano is one of the most well-funded blockchains, and its followers are hoping that the ecosystem will develop over the coming months.

Emurgo’s $100 million could play a critical role in that process. Since its inception, Emurgo has been a core contributor to Cardano by engaging with developers, startups, enterprises, and governments. The firm has confirmed it will move to “dedicated operations” of funding the blockchain’s ecosystem starting next year.

Emurgo’s funding project will run in addition to Input Output’s cFund, another capital venture fund for strategic investments in the network. There’s also Project Catalyst, a community-governed decentralized fund with over $1 billion stored in an on-chain treasury.