Superfluid, a Ethereum ETH
+3.64%
-based token streaming protocol that enables real-time crypto transfers has raised $5.1 million in a strategic funding round.
Fabric Ventures led the round, with Multicoin Capital, Circle Ventures, Safe Foundation, The LAO, Taavet+Sten and others participating, Superfluid said Thursday. The round closed late last year, Superfluid co-founder and CEO Francesco George Renzi told The Block, adding that it had the same structure as the startup’s seed round, i.e. shares with token warrants.
Superfluid raised $9 million in seed funding in 2021. The strategic round comes almost three years later and is smaller than the starting round. Renzi said Superfluid brought forward what was needed to get the right investors on board and take the project to the next phase.
Superfluid distribution pools
Launched in 2021, the Superfluid protocol lets crypto projects, such as decentralized autonomous organizations, pay recurring salaries and rewards in separate on-chain transactions via its “supertokens.” Super tokens make it possible to create money flows between two parties.
Today, Superfluid is launching “distribution pools” that create a pool of money that can be distributed to multiple recipients. “From the sender’s perspective, streaming to a distribution pool is the same as streaming to a single user,” Renzi says. “This single transaction has the same gas cost regardless of the number of recipients. This means developers can now use Superfluid to build smart streaming contracts that scale to millions of users, while keeping gas costs completely predictable.”
Superfluid has a number of high-profile customers, including ENS DAO, Optimism and Gitcoin’s Allo Protocol. “We are helping Optimism distribute 30 million OP tokens, which at current prices is over $110 million, to more than 500 participants,” Renzi said. “Including our Optimism partnership, the Superfluid Protocol currently moves approximately $1.6 million per day, and we have streamed more than $150 million in value to date,” he added.
Superfluid supports 10 Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible blockchain networks, with Scroll being the latest addition. Renzi said the protocol is only intended to support the Ethereum ecosystem “in the near future” and hopes to expand to other blockchain ecosystems in the distant future.
There are currently 18 people working for Superfluid, mostly engineers, Renzi said, adding that the project looks to use some of the new capital to hire marketing staff.
Superfluid token?
When asked if Superfluid plans to launch its own token soon, Renzi said that the protocol has always aimed to be community-run and that he will leave it up to the community to decide whether to launch one .
“We will follow the most proven ways to decentralize governance,” he added.
