Crypto staking services provider Figment raises $2.5 million in Series A funding

Figment, a crypto staking infrastructure provider, has secured $2.5 million in Series A funding.

The round was led by Bonfire Ventures, with participation from FJ Labs, XDL Capital Group, Lemniscap, BKCM, and angel investor Stephan Patnernot.

With fresh capital in hand, Figment plans to expand its team and scale its staking infrastructure. Figment currently employs 26 people and looks to hire at least five more across sales, research, and engineering teams, co-founder and CEO Lorien Gabel told The Block.

As for scaling its infrastructure, Gabel said Figment would hire Dev-Ops (development and IT operation) engineers, increase automation, and build improved customer dashboards. "We will also grow our research team to better represent our token holders via governance," said Gabel.

Founded in 2018, Canada-based Figment currently runs validator nodes for more than 30 blockchain networks, including Tezos, Cosmos, Polkadot, Avalanche, and SKALE. These are proof-of-stake networks that use validators to create blocks. Proof-of-work systems such as Bitcoin, on the other hand, use miners to form blocks. From a crypto user perspective, staking is similar to an interest-earning account in a traditional bank. 

Gabel told The Block that Figment currently has around $200 million in assets staked to its validators. "We secure blockchain networks with our validator infrastructure at the consensus level," he said. "We are also actively involved in governance on all platforms we support."

Today's funding round brings Figment's total funding to date to $5 million. The firm has previously raised $1.5 million in a seed round in March 2019, and before that, it scored $1 million in an unannounced pre-seed round, Gabel told The Block.

Figment is not looking to raise additional funds in the near future as its cash flow, and the new equity raise will provide for "well over 2+ years of capital," said Gabel. "We will be profitable this year."

Other staking services providers in the space include Certus One, SparkPool, Stakin, and Stake.fish, among others.