Figment Networks

Basics

• Based in Toronto, Canada.
• From their website (9-3-2020):

"Figment Networks is [Canada's] largest blockchain infrastructure, software and staking provider."

• From an Interchain (who has funded Figment) blog (21-2-2020):

"Figment Networks launched in 2018 to support the wider adoption, growth, and long term success of stake-based protocols. Figment’s co-founders, Matt Harrop, Lorien Gabel, and Andrew Cronk have decades of experience scaling Internet infrastructure companies, and are applying that experience in the new world of Proof of Stake validator services.

Figment was an active participant in the Cosmos testnet program in 2018 and was one of the “Never Jailed” winners in the Cosmos Game of Stakes. They also built Hubble, the Cosmos staking explorer. In late 2018, leading up to the Game of Stakes, the ICF engaged them with a service agreement to open source Hubble and to add some features to ensure that it was easy to access information during the Game of Stakes.

They have become leading validators in many Proof of Stake networks, including Cosmos, Tezos, Livepeer, and many more, including a number of other Cosmos blockchains.

Most recently, the ICF engaged Figment to build open-source income reporting tools for staking rewards for current and previous versions of the Cosmos Hub, so that everyone can get the necessary information to satisfy their reporting requirements.

While only a small amount of Figment’s funding has come from the ICF, they have taken a significant leadership role in the Cosmos Hub community and governance process. They’ve published many articles about the Cosmos ecosystem and technology, and are quite active in the community and development channels. Their Community Analyst, Gavin Birch, has been a leading evangelist for the Cosmos governance process and has played a seminal role in drafting governance proposals and marshalling support for Cosmos Hub upgrades. This work was done independently by Figment, establishing them as a community leader, and the network has benefited significantly from it. It’s amazing to see independent entities step up to leadership roles to help marshal the decentralized network forward.

In early 2020, Gavin’s role in governance was recognized formally by the on-chain governance mechanism. With the latest Cosmos Hub 3 upgrade, spending from the community pool became possible by passing a governance proposal. The network voted to pay Figment Networks for Gavin’s work to form a Governance Working Group intended to lower the barrier for high-quality governance proposals, to help organize participation in the governance process, and to develop resources and best practices documentation for future governance proposals. We’re excited to see such important work being funded autonomously by the Cosmos Hub’s native economics itself, without any influence or funding from the Interchain Foundation."

Projects

• Listed as a node operator at Chainlink (7-2-2023).
• Wormhole; is one of the 19 guardians (10-8-2021).

DataHub

• From Our Network #40 (25-9-2020):

"Infura is an incredibly important tool for any Ethereum developer, and Figment is building something equivalent for Terra, DataHub.

The Graph

• From their mailing list (2-8-2021):

"We are officially diving further into The Graph ecosystem as a core dev team on The Graph. We will receive 80M GRT over the span of 5 years for the development work we perform on The Graph."

Staking Services

Has staking live on the following networks:

• Cosmos; from their website (9-3-2020): "Original testnet participant and Serving world’s largest ATOM holders + Interchain Foundation (ICF). Receive 91% of staking rewards (9% commission fee)."
• Tezos; from their website (9-3-2020): "Baking since 2018. Multiple grant recipient from the Tezos Foundation. We are building Baker Hub, a post-delegation tool for staking participants to track their baker’s performance with alerts. Receive 92% of staking rewards (8% fee)."
• Livepeer; from their website (9-3-2020): "Operating active transcoder since June 2018. Livepeer’s original VC investors stake with Figment. We are building staking rewards tracking, thanks to a grant from the Livepeer team. Receive 90% of rewards (10% fee) +  50% of transcoder transaction fees."
• Kusama; from their website (9-3-2020): "Early test-net participant. Serving and trusted by many original Polkadot investors. No fee for minimum of 3 months."
• Terra; from their website (9-3-2020): "Early test-net participant and genesis block producer. Serving world’s largest LUNA holders, including the Terra team. Rewards are received in stablecoin tokens. Receive 88% of staking rewards (12% fee)."
• Kava; from their website (9-3-2020): "Genesis block producer. Trusted staking provider by the founding team, Kava Labs and original VC investors e.g. Lemniscap VC. Receive 90% of staking rewards (10% fee)."
• Irisnet; from their website (9-3-2020): "Original test-net participant. Genesis block producer. Serving the world’s largest IRIS holders + IRISnet foundation. Receive 85% of staking rewards (15% fee)."
• Chainlink; from their website (9-3-2020): "Figment Networks has been successfully running a Chainlink oracle and data processor node since 9/19. Chainlink is not yet decentralized. Therefore, staking or node operation services are not yet available for LINK token holders."
• Algorand; from their website (9-3-2020): "Operating investor Relay & Participation nodes since network launch on 6/19. Serving Algorand’s original investors and world’s largest ALGO holders."
• Harmony; from their website (9-3-2020): "Operating multiple investor nodes since network launch.  Genesis block producer. Serving many of Harmony’s original VC investors. Per node pricing:  $600 USDC + 10% of rewards (you receive 90%)."
• ICON
• AION; from their website (9-3-2020): "Original testnet participant. Genesis block producer. Serving world’s largest AION holders & original investors, such as XDL Capital Group. Receive 97% of staking rewards (3% commission fee)."
• Edgeware; from their website (9-3-2020): "Receive 94% of staking rewards (6% commission fee)."
• Is a validator on Band Protocol (8-2020).
• Staking provider for NuCypher (9-10-2020).
• Terra, is one of the main validators (15-12-2020).
• Flow; is a validator (15-3-2021).
• Mine. Is mentioned as one of the validators on Mina (31-3-2021).
• Quicksilver; Figment was part of the early investors (1-9-2022). And "Figment participated in both their testnets as validators—first in the non-incentivized one, Rhapsody, and later on on the incentivized one, Killer Queen."
• Aptos; got announced on 24-9-2022;

"Aptos introduced the Aptos Node Operators Partnership Program (ANOPP) soon after the Aptos Incentivized Testnet 2.  The ANOPP selects the most experienced and best performing validators. The selected validators receive foundation delegation from the Aptos team and are automatically selected participants for Mainnet. Based on our performance and reliability in supporting Proof of Stake networks, Figment has been selected for ANOPP and will receive foundation delegation upon genesis."

Team, investors, partners

Team

• Matt Harrop; co-founder & CTO
• Lorien Gabel; co-founder
• Andrew Cronk; co-founder & Product
• Gavin Birch; Community Analyst
• From Decrypt (29-10-2020):

"The company has expanded to include 26 employees and built services on over 30 protocols, according to Gabel."

Funding

• Got put in the B category on a Crypto VC list (29-8-2022).
• From an Interchain (who has provided a small amount Figment's funding) blog (21-2-2020): 

"Figment raised a seed round in early 2019 from a number of investors to build out their secure and compliant staking services for large token holders."

• From their website (9-3-2020): Prota Ventures, Bonfire Ventures, XDL Capital Group, Lemniscap, FJ Labs.
• From Decrypt (29-10-2020): "Raised $2.5 million in a second funding round. In addition to Bonfire Ventures, the funding round also saw participation from FJ Labs, XDL Capital Group, Leminiscap, BKCM, and investor Stephan Patnernot."
• From their website (16-8-2021):

"We are pleased to announce that in Q2 we raised $50 million from both Institutional and Strategic partners in the largest funding round to date for any staking provider. Led by Senator Investment Group and Liberty City Ventures with participation from Galaxy Digital, Anchorage Digital, Declaration Partners, Bonfire Ventures, 10T Holdings, JPK Capital, 40 North, Finality Capital Partners, GSR, GFT Ventures, and Hard Yaka, the capital raised will be used to grow our headcount and diversify the breadth of services we provide up and down the Web 3 stack."

• From their blog (20-12-2021):

"We are happy to announce that we have closed our $110M Series C WAGMI round at a $1.4 billion post-money valuation. The funding round will allow us to accomplish 4 core goals

1. Support More Proof of Stake Blockchains
2. Increase Staking Participation
3. Scale the Middleware and dApp Development Layers
4. Hire More Builders"

• Acala's aUSD Ecosystem Fund; one of the founding funds to grow the Acala stablecoin (23-3-2022)
• Avail; part of the $27M seed round (26-2-2024)
• Celestia; participated in their $55M raise (20-10-2022).
• EigenLayer; participated in their Seed of $14.5M (28-3-2023)
• Nym; part of their $300M Privacy-Centric 'Innovation Fund'
• Quicksilver; Figment was part of the early investors (1-9-2022). And "Figment participated in both their testnets as validators—first in the non-incentivized one, Rhapsody, and later on on the incentivized one, Killer Queen."
• Umee; is mentioned as a backer on the Umee website (14-11-2022).