Superfluid, an Ethereum-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., equity with token warrants.
Superfluid raised $9 million in seed funding in 2021. The strategic round comes nearly three years later and is smaller than the seed round. Renzi said Superfluid raised what was needed to get the right investors on board and the project to the next stage.
Superfluid distribution pools
The Superfluid protocol was launched in 2021 and lets crypto projects, such as decentralized autonomous organizations, pay recurrent salaries and rewards in single on-chain transactions via its “super tokens.” Super tokens enable the creation of money streams between two parties.
Today, Superfluid is launching “distribution pools” that enable the creation of a pool of funds that can be distributed to multiple recipients. “From a sender’s point of view, streaming to a distribution pool is like streaming to a single user,” Renzi said. “This single transaction has the same gas cost, whatever the number of recipients. This means developers can now leverage Superfluid to build streaming smart contracts that can scale to millions of users while having totally predictable gas costs.”
Superfluid has some high-profile clients, including ENS DAO, Optimism and Gitcoin’s Allo Protocol. “We’re helping Optimism distribute 30 million OP tokens, which is over $110 million at current prices, to over 500 participants,” Renzi said. “Including our Optimism partnership, the Superfluid protocol is currently moving around $1.6 million a day, and we’ve already streamed over $150 million in value to date,” he added.
Superfluid supports 10 Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible blockchain networks, with Scroll being its latest addition. Renzi said the protocol aims to only support the Ethereum ecosystem “for the foreseeable future” and hopes to expand to other blockchain ecosystems in the distant future.
There are currently 18 people working for Superfluid, primarily engineers, Renzi said, adding that the project looks to use some of the fresh capital to hire marketing staff.
Superfluid token?
Asked if Superfluid plans to launch its native token anytime soon, Renzi said the protocol has always aimed to be governed by the community and will leave it to the community to decide whether to launch one.
“We will be following the most tried and tested ways of decentralizing governance,” he added.
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