This article comes fromBloombergBloomberg

Odaily Translator | Nian Yin Si Tang

, by Olga Kharif & Gillian Tan

Odaily Translator | Nian Yin Si Tang

Ava Labs Inc., the lead developer of the Avalanche blockchain, is raising a new round of funding, according to people familiar with the matter. Its new valuation would make it one of the most valuable cryptocurrency startups in the world.

The company will raise $350 million at a valuation of $5.25 billion, one of the people said. The person asked not to be identified because the funding round has not been made public.

Ava Labs was co-founded in 2018 by Cornell University professor Emin Gün Sirer. The company now has 170 employees, according to PitchBook. By providing high-speed transactions and low transaction fees for various applications such as trading, lending, and gaming, Avalanche is trying to compete with public chains such as Ethereum and Solana.

According to data provided by tracker DappRadar, there are nearly 250 active applications running on Avalanche, many of which are in the DeFi or gaming space. When the news was first released, CoinMarketCap.com data showed that Avalanche's native token AVAX rose about 4% on the day, with a market value of $21.5 billion. In the long run, AVAX has risen by about 19% in the past month, and is currently the 10th largest cryptocurrency by market value (Note: The latest data shows that as BTC once fell below $40,000 today, AVAX fell simultaneously, and now the overall market value has dropped to 21 billion US dollars, temporarily reported at 78.05 US dollars, a 24-hour drop of 4.18%).Despite the turmoil in the cryptocurrency market, Ava Labs remains focused on raising more capital. The price of bitcoin has fallen sharply from its all-time high in November amid concerns over tightening monetary policy by the Federal Reserve, inflation and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

• According to Crunchbase statistics, so far, Ava Labs has raised $290 million in seven rounds of financing, the main financing events include:In September 2021, the Avalanche Foundation is completed

• $230 million in private financing, Polychain and Three Arrows Capital led the round, with participation from R/Crypto Fund, Dragonfly, CMS Holdings, Collab+Currency, Lvna Capital, and a number of angel investors and family offices.In June 2020, AVA Labs completed

• $12 million private placement of AVAX tokens

. Galaxy Digital, Bitmain, Initialized Capital, NGC Ventures, and Dragonfly Capital led the investment, and Fundamental Labs, Continue Capital and other institutions and individuals participated in the investment.

In 2019, AVA Labs completed $6 million in financing, with investors including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Polychain.Avalanche is currently the fourth largest blockchain after Ethereum, Terra, and BNB Chain in terms of volume locked (TVL), with a current TVL of $10.43 billion according to DefiLlama.In recent weeks, the network has seen some important developments that could fuel its growth. For example, in early March, the Avalanche Foundation announced the launch of

"Avalanche Multiverse" program

, to incentivize new types of development on the Avalanche blockchain. The Avalanche Foundation will fund the initiative with 4 million AVAX tokens (worth approximately $290 million at current prices) to encourage the growth of subnets on its network.These subnetworks are blockchains linked to Avalanche, which share similar tools and functionality, but can be customized to the needs of specific applications. Its speed and cost are not affected by other events on the Avalanche blockchain - such as a popular NFT drop. Subnets can also use tokens of their own design instead of AVAX.Additionally, later that same month, the Avalanche Foundation and Web3 social media platform Op3n

Announcing a $100 million plan

, Culture Catalyst is designed to let creatives build projects on Avalanche that are only accessible on emerging social media platform Op3n.