Blockstream raises $55M Series A to develop interoperable blockchain tech
Pete Rizzo / CoinDesk :
Context & Ripple Effects
In 2016, venture money began flowing to blockchain 'picks and shovels' rather than consumer apps: months after Google-backed Ripple pulled in $55M from big banks for its payments network, Blockstream secured an identical $55M Series A to work on interoperable blockchain technology.
The bet aged well by the corpus's own record — five years on, Blockstream raised a $210M Series B at a $3.2B valuation and moved to acquire Israeli mining manufacturer Spondoolies, making this early round the entry point of one of Bitcoin infrastructure's largest private companies.
First-order effects
- Blockstream gains the runway to fund development of interoperable blockchain tech, putting it among the best-capitalized pure-play blockchain startups of 2016 alongside Ripple.
Second-order effects
- Enterprise-focused rivals like Digital Asset — which had already stacked $110M in total funding building for financial institutions — now compete against a well-funded player pushing cross-chain interoperability instead of single-institution deployments.
Third-order effects
- If the funding pattern holds, the industry consolidates around an infrastructure layer — Blockstream's later Series B and Blockdaemon's enterprise-infrastructure round both fit it — where scale capital, not application features, decides who owns the base of the stack.
The trend: Blockchain infrastructure startups are drawing progressively larger venture rounds, with interoperability and enterprise tooling becoming the capital-intensive battleground between 2016 and 2021.