Ethereum explorer Rated raises $12.88m to expand to other networks

Rated Labs, the project that provides an explorer service for the Ethereum network, has raised $12.88m in a Series A round to expand to other blockchains. 

We are thrilled to announce that Rated Labs, the company behind @ratedw3b, has raised a $12.888 million Series A round to accelerate our mission for greater transparency and rich context in Web3 infrastructure data.

Read more ? https://t.co/Witn2lLOva pic.twitter.com/JmWKS7fBWT

— Rated ?✨ (@ratedw3b) September 27, 2023

The lead investor was venture firm Archetype, with participation from Placeholder, 1confirmation, Cherry, Semantic, Robot Ventures, Chorus One, Factor, and Maelstrom.

The startup’s total funding to date amounts to $15m. A few weeks ago, Rated received seed funding of $2.5m. The company’s CEO, Elias Simos, said it was an ‘all-equity’ round but declined to name the valuation.

Rated Labs is developing a network Ethereum explorer, corresponding to an API and oracle. According to Simos, the company’s service helps understand the current and historical state of the validator set.

APIs allow developers and node operators to build products for reporting, monitoring, and comparative analysis, and the oracle serves as a gateway for transferring data to the Ethereum mainnet.

Rated will channel the raised funds into expanding the explorer to other networks, including Polygon, Solana, Cosmos and Polkadot.

The company employs 12 people. The project head plans to double the staff over the next few quarters, primarily hiring developers.

According to Simos, Rated has no direct competitors, though beaconcha.in and Metrika may compete with it.

Earlier, the gaming blockchain startup Proof of Play, led by former Zynga software development chief Amit Mahajan, raised $33m.

In Q2 2023, Web3-projects attracted about $1.8bn in venture funding — a figure down 76% from the same period in 2022.