en
Back to the list

Blockchain Firm Skynet Labs Shutters After Failing to Get New Funding

source-logo  coindesk.com 12 August 2022 21:56, UTC

Skynet Labs, the blockchain company behind Siacoin, is shutting down after the company couldn’t raise more funds, and will also be cutting jobs, according to a blog post Friday.

In 2020, the startup formerly known as Nebulous, raised $3 million in a funding round led by crypto investing giant Paradigm. Skynet Labs was formed as the company sought to focus on Skynet, a decentralized storage and app hosting platform to buildout a decentralized internet.

“It is with regret that we announce Skynet Labs has been unable to complete its next round of fundraising and will be shutting down,” CEO David Vorick wrote in the blog post. Skynet, however, will continue to operate as a platform, he said, adding that user files will stay online, and key portions of the infrastructure will continue to be actively developed.

"Not the outcome we wanted, but not the end of the road for Skynet either," Vorick also said in a Tweet on Friday.

Skynet Labs has cut half of its employees, and will lessen to half size additionally over the next month. “Much of what Skynet has accomplished, including its ability to continue operating in the face of Skynet Lab’s dissolution, and including its ability to provide value to the wider web3 ecosystem, is owed to the efforts and contributions of the Skynet Labs team members,” Vorick added.

On July 26, the Vorick laid out road map for Skynet in a blog post and said that the team has been focusing on decentralization and Web3 user experience similar to Web2. "Achieving both of those things at the same time has required a substantial amount of innovation, but we are fortunate enough to have a team that is more than capable of consistently churning out new updates that push the boundaries of our industry," he said.

coindesk.com