The Skale Network, a decentralized Ethereum-compatible network, has completed a $17.1 million funding round for its mainnet launch.

Solid global backing

Backed by the Liechtenstein’s Node Foundation and United States-based Skale Labs, the network now has over 40 investors in the U.S., European Union, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, according to a news release shared with Cointelegraph on Oct. 1.

The new financing round featured major industry investors including Arrington XRP, ConsenSys Labs, Winklevoss Capital, Multicoin Capital, Blockchange, Hashed, HashKey and Recruit Holdings.

$9.65 million raised in 2018

As previously reported, the network is a fully permissionless, open source, peer-to-peer network that is run using the Skale utility token staked by decentralized applications and supported by validator nodes.

The network was announced in October 2018, when Skale Labs raised $9.65 million in funding for launching the initiative. At the time, the firm stated that Skale will be the first implementation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) on a Plasma chain.

The Skale Network is reportedly expected to enable developers to easily provision highly configurable virtualized chains that enjoy instant compatibility with the Ethereum blockchain. According to the news release, Skale Chains can execute sub-second block times, run over 2,000 transactions per second on every chain, and run full-state smart contracts in addition to decentralized storage, and machine learning in EVM.

In August 2019, Skale Labs announced the launch of its Fuji DevNet, a decentralized DevNet that is run by a global community of validators including Blockware, Certus.One, Chorus One, Dokia, Figment Networks, Hashed, Staked, StakewithUs, and Stake X, as well as key infrastructure player Bison Trails.