The layer 1 blockchain from ex-Meta employees made its mainnet debut last month with a limited ecosystem.
Blocto, a Mark Cuban-backed multi-chain crypto wallet and ecosystem, has announced a $3 million Aptos Ecosystem Fund to help projects onboard new users, according to a press release provided to CoinDesk.
Aptos Labs, the company behind Aptos, was co-founded by Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, former Meta employees who helped create the tech giant’s failed stablecoin known as diem. The high-profile layer 1 blockchain raised $200 million in a March funding round led by noted investment firm Andreesen Horowitz and then raised another $150 million in a July round led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto. However, the mainnet debut last month was shaky, with initially slow transaction times and a limited ecosystem as dozens of projects were still waiting to launch.
Blocto was founded in Taipei in 2019 by parent company portto and offers a wallet application and ecosystem that aims to make it easier for new users to enter the Web3 space through features such as email logins and universal gas or transaction fees. Blocto, which has raised $8.8 million in funding according to Crunchbase, also supports the Ethereum, Solana, Flow, BNB Chain, Polygon and Tron blockchains.
“We’ve been on the lookout for promising blockchain ecosystems with long-term potential, and Aptos has caught our attention,” said Blocto co-founder and CEO Hsuan Lee in the press release. “It aims to make blockchain accessible for average users – a big focus for us at Blocto – and has accumulated a lot of momentum in the dev community, even in the current market situation.”
Alongside the funding, Blocto will also offer the selected projects operational support, including access to Blocto’s investor base, financial marketing team and its developers.