Paris Hilton And Will Smith Invest In Boba Network, Following Joe Montana's Footsteps

Will Smith, one of the investors in Boba Network. (photo: instagram @willsmith)

JAKARTA - Ethereum blockchain scaling platform Boba Network raised USD 45 million in a series A investment round. On Tuesday, March 5 the company said it had the participation of investors such as Will Smith-led Dreamers VC, Paris Hilton, and Carter Reum's M13 and cryptocurrency exchanges, Crypto.com.

The funding round gave Boba a $1.5 billion valuation, while former American Football quarterback Joe Montana and crypto funds Hypersphere and Infinite Capital also made similar investments.

Boba allows users to develop decentralized applications on the Ethereum blockchain with more features and lower costs. They can also transfer non-equal tokens (NFT) across multiple Ethereum layers.

"Boba Network plans to use the funds to expand Web3's offerings and invest in projects that build on its ecosystem," said co-founder Alan Chiu, as quoted by Reuters.

Boba Network's crypto token market cap is now up more than 19% to 272.1 million US dollars after the announcement. While the price rose to 1.71 from 1.44 US dollars, according to CoinMarketCap.

Ethereum's "gas" fee, or transaction execution price, has risen sharply over the last few years as blockchain has become more popular, giving rise to platforms designed to reduce fees and speed up transactions.

Venture capital firms have invested money into blockchain technology startups with SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 and Bain Capital Ventures among those that have launched crypto-focused funds or invested in blockchain technology companies since early 2022.