Decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) peaq has disclosed a $15 million funding round ahead of its mainnet launch in May.
The round was led by Generative Ventures and Borderless Capital, with participation from Spartan Group, HV Capital, CMCC Global, Animoca Brands, Moonrock Capital, Fundamental Labs, and other investors.
The German-based startup was founded in 2017 by Julia Pönitzsch, Leonard Dorlöchter, Max Thake, and Till Wendler to apply decentralization to physical infrastructure and systems, aiming to build an "Economy of Things" network. According to the company, its ecosystem is home to more than 20 DePIN projects — “already more than the likes of Solana, Polygon and other prominent layer-1s,” the company claimed in a statement to Cointelegraph.
Announcing: peaq raises $15M in a pre-launch funding round led by @genventurecap and @borderless_cap
— peaq (@peaqnetwork) March 27, 2024
The funds will go towards making it easier and faster for #DePINs to build, launch, and scale on peaq, ahead of peaq’s upcoming public offering, and the launch of peaq’s… pic.twitter.com/1ErsxsIUFP
DePIN uses blockchain technology to incentivize people to build, own and run real-world physical infrastructure, thus distributing control across a network and avoiding centralization in any single organization’s hands.
Initiatives in different industries are exploring DePIN use cases, such as energy systems for peer-to-peer energy trading, supply chains, telecommunications for internet access, and data storage for secure data management. Data from intelligence firm Messari indicates that the DePIN market valuation could reach $3.5 trillion in the next four years.
The startup offers DePINs with Modular DePIN Functions, which are ready-to-use functions that allow DePINs to build and deploy their projects on the blockchain. Features available for projects include a machine tokenization platform and a DePIN Accelerator program.
In 2021, peaq raised nearly $2.7 million in a seed round. The additional funds will be primarily allocated to its ecosystem expansion and further development of solutions for developers.
“We will keep working on expanding the ecosystem, which will stand to benefit from more funds going into the Ecosystem Grant Program, and further developing the peaq SDK and the Modular DePIN Functions. All and all, this year is shaping up to be intense, growth-focused, and very promising, which is how we like it,” Leonard Dorlochter, co-founder of peaq, told Cointelegraph.
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