NEAR Protocol raises $350 million led by Tiger Global and other investors

The NEAR Protocol team closed a funding round worth $350 million led by venture-capital firm Tiger Global, with participation from Republic Capital, Hashed, FTX Ventures, Dragonfly Capital and other investors. The Block reports.

Against the backdrop of the funding round, the native NEAR token rose by 9% to $16.8.

The funds will be used to increase the number of regional hubs in key community centers around the world.

According to the team, the NEAR platform hosts around 300 applications with more than 200,000 community members worldwide.

According to DeFi Llama, the value locked in the NEAR Protocol DeFi ecosystem reached $312 million. The largest project built on the protocol is the DeFi platform Ref Finance.

In January, NEAR Protocol raised $150 million, after which the NEAR price reached an all-time high at around $20.

In the same month, the platform team unveiled a new staking mechanism, allowing validators to pay rewards to delegates in several different tokens.

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