Quick take:
- Fabric Ventures and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn’s VC firm led the funding round.
- Funds will be used to support Argent’s plans to expand into other NFT verticals.
- Argent wants to be the go-to wallet for NFT gaming.
London-based DeFi wallet startup, Argent, has raised $40 million in a Series B round, led by Fabric Ventures and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn’s VC firm, Metaplanet.
Participants in the round included existing investors Paradigm, Index Ventures and Creandum, alongside new backers Starkware, Jump Crypto and Animoca Brands.
Funds will be used to support Argent’s plans to expand into other NFT verticals as well as other activities across DeFi and Web3.
“Argent still feels very finance-centric, and we want to play a big role in other NFT verticals — so NFT gaming, virtual real estate,” co-founder and CEO Itamar Lesuisse told The Block. “We want to be the de facto wallet for gaming.”
To achieve that goal, Argent would have to build new functionality within the wallet for blockchain games, such as infrastructure for onboarding new players and signing in-game transactions. Currently, Argent users can store NFTs in their wallets by connecting them to major marketplaces including OpenSea.
The funding will also be used to roll out Argent’s services in Latin America, starting with Mexico, where Lesuisse sees strong demand. Part of the proceeds will go towards hiring in-house legal, finance and treasury experts as well as a new research team focused on Layer 2 protocols.
Founded in 2017, Argent launched the first public version of its Ethereum wallet in 2020. It claims to have more than 500,000 sign-ups for the app. The wallet offers multi-sig security, no seed phrases and users can lock it in just a tap.
The startup launched a new version of the wallet in March, built on zkSync, an Ethereum scaling solution that helps to reduce the cost and environmental impact of DeFi transactions.
In December, Argent launched an open-source Chrome browser wallet for StarkNet, called Argent X, to fuel the growth of the StarkNet Dapp ecosystem. Speaking to The Block, Lesuisse said: “We are doing a massive push on StarkNet and their permissionless network with Argent X.”
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