Facebook's Diem dApp Framework Pontem Raises $4.5 Million in Seed Funding

The Pontem project is tasked with bringing interoperability between private (permissioned) Diem blockchain and public (permissionless) distributed platforms.

Pontem secures $4.5 million in seed funding, Mechanism Capital, Kenetic Capital co-led the round

The team behind Pontem framework for dApps announces that it raised $4,500,000 from top-notch VCs. Its seed funding round was co-led by Mechanism Capital and Kenetic Capital.

Also, blockchain investing veterans Delphi Ventures and Alameda Ventures, together with flagship NFT platform Animoca Brands, took part in this round.

Pontem co-founder Stas Oskin stressed that the concept of his project is very important for cross-chain interoperability in DeFi, in particular for integrations with Polkadot (DOT):

Pontem's vision is to allow developers to build for Diem and at the same time enjoy the liquidity, data, and user base of Polkadot. We have advanced this vision very far  bootstrapping with our in-house resources, but the time has come to make a leap forward and grow much faster. After the impressive success of the funding round, we are confident that our vision will become a reality even sooner than anyone expected.

Jehan Chu, co-founder and managing partner at Kenetic Capital, added that Pontem's progress on Diem is an unparalelled experiment for the entire Facebook userbase:

Pontem is an audacious project in that it not only creates a testing ground for Diem, possibly the largest and most adopted blockchain project in the world, but also an active proving ground for new protocols and communities.

Bringing DeFis, NFTs to Facebook audience

The successful funding round is followed by the impressive expansion of the board of directors of Pontem. Alejo Pinto, formerly of BlockFi, has been introduced as Pontem's chief growth officer.

Pontem is tasked with creating frameworks for developers on Polkadot (DOT), Ethereum (ETH) and Eos (EOS) to integrate with Facebook's Diem blockchain.

As such, Pontem provides 2.7 billion Facebook users with exposure to decentralized financial protocols (DeFis) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).