Blockchain infrastructure provider ConsenSys has reached a lofty valuation of $3.2 billion afterwards closing a $200 million funding round, joining over a dozen other crypto-focused companies to reach coveted unicorn condition this twelvemonth alone.

The $200 million financing circular saw participation from several new investors, including Marshall Wace, Tertiary Point and Think Investments, which contributed alongside existing investors such as Dragonfly Capital, Electric Upper-case letter, Spartan Grouping, Coinbase Ventures, HSBC, Disobedience Capital and Animoca Brands.

ConsenSys also announced that Ethereum wallet and browser extension MetaMask has achieved roughly 21 meg monthly active users, having more than doubled over the past four months.

MetaMask, which was developed past ConsenSys, was recently integrated by three crypto-focused custodians — BitGo, Qredo and Cactus Custody — as part of their ongoing efforts to attract more institutional capital letter to the digital asset marketplace. MetaMask has served equally a disquisitional pathway for users to enter decentralized finance, improve known every bit DeFi, by providing them with the infrastructure to connect to decentralized exchanges. ConsenSys said that MetaMask's in-app swap feature has enabled more than than $ten billion in peer-to-peer token swapping.

The mission of MetaMask, according to Ethereum co-founder and ConsenSys founder Joseph Lubin, is to "democratize access to web3," which refers to the third generation of internet services.

In the concluding twelvemonth lonely, several crypto-focused startups have reached unicorn condition, a term used to describe new enterprises with a valuation of $one billion or more than. In October, crypto list platform CoinList saw its valuation rise to $1.five billion after concluding a $100 one thousand thousand Series A investment round. In September, blockchain infrastructure developer Blockdaemon raised $155 million in Serial B financing, bringing its total valuation to $1.255 billion.

Related: Unicorns in crypto: A growing herd of billion-dollar crypto companies

These companies joined Mercado Bitcoin, Bitso, Blockstream, BlockFi, Fireblocks, Amber Group, Figure Technologies, OpenSea and Blockchain.com in exceeding the $one billion valuation category.

Crypto venture capital has shattered all previous highs this yr. In the starting time ten months of 2022, venture funds allocated more than $17 billion to crypto companies, compared with but over $5 billion in all of 2022.