Unstoppable Domains, a popular blockchain naming system provider, is putting together a funding round at a valuation of $1 billion, three people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
The startup is in talks with a number of new and existing investors including Draper Associates, Coinbase Ventures, Protocol Labs and Naval Ravikant to raise about $60 million in a new financing round, the sources said, requesting anonymity as the deliberations are ongoing and private.
The round hasn’t closed yet, so the terms may change, they cautioned. The startup had no comment on Tuesday.
Unstoppable Domains allows people to create their username for crypto and build decentralized digital identities. The startup, which sells domains with certain TLDs for as low as $5, has helped people register over 2.1 million domains to date, it says on its website. Some of the popular TLDs it offers include .crypto, .coin, .bitcoin, .x, .888, .nft and .dao.
Unstoppable Domains, which includes members who worked at companies such as Amazon’s AWS, Uber and Slack, mints each decentralized domain name as an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain to give the owner broader control and ownership.
Having a domain name allows users to not bother with sharing their meaninglessly long wallet addresses with friends and businesses.
It also has integrations with over 140 applications including OpenSea, Coinbase wallet, Rainbow wallet, Chainlink, Brave browser and ETHMail. Over 90 DApps support the startup’s Login with Unstoppable product, a single sign-on service for Ethereum and Polygon, addressing one of the painful experiences plaguing the crypto community.
In a pitch deck to investors, the startup said it is attempting to build the “Coinbase of the decentralized web.” Thanks to its wide offerings today, it competes with ENS, Solana Bonfida, Tezos and Handshake.
The startup has amassed over 240,000 customers and posted a revenue of $53 million last year, two sources said. It’s also profitable, they added. It plans to partner with corporates this year to launch their TLDs, the startup says in the pitch deck, obtained by TechCrunch.
Original Story Tech Crunch