Tim Draper’s Draper Dragon Fund Backs OPEN’s Pioneering Blockchain Payments Infrastructure for Apps

Draper Dragon Fund joins OPEN’s mission to pave the road for true cryptocurrency adoption by empowering software developers

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — March 30, 2018 — OPEN, the first blockchain payments infrastructure for applications, today announced the addition of Tim Draper’s Draper Dragon Digital Asset Fund, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage, high growth companies with market appeal in Silicon Valley and Asia. The firm’s managing director, Andy Tang, will support OPEN as they build the first ‘developer wallet’ through its inception of blockchain’s first payment infrastructure for centralized and decentralized application developers.

“As a prominent leader in the blockchain space, Draper Dragon’s backing is a tremendous endorsement for OPEN’s technology for blockchain payments,” said OPEN CEO and Founder Ken Sangha. “Their support strengthens our vision of becoming a catalyst for blockchain adoption and integration by empowering mainstream software developers.”

OPEN appeals to existing applications and new applications by enabling current applications to integrate OPEN’s technology without having to redevelop existing application stacks. Further, a developer’s application can be ported to various smart contract based blockchains through a single integration by piggybacking off of OPEN’s Scaffold.

Centralized applications, including leading entertainment platforms and mobile games, such as Netflix and Candy Crush, as well as newer decentralized applications, can incorporate OPEN’s accompanying payment rails applications needed to accept blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies in a way that applies to many current application infrastructures.

Most applications require the use of off-chain technologies, meaning traditional components that do not exist on blockchains such as a database to interact with transactions taking place on the blockchain, thus requiring applications to realistically require both on-chain and off-chain components. OPEN provides this missing infrastructure for developers to enable application backends to interface with blockchain wallets and the two-way communication of payment data between on-chain and off-chain systems.

OPEN’s current application developer partners consist of both centralized and decentralized applications from a variety of categories from gaming to enterprise partners. OPEN’s developer growth program is aimed at supporting application developers to build blockchain or cryptocurrency integrations via funding, marketing, technology and growth acceleration.

The OPEN team has years of experience founding, growing and developing mobile applications, including leading application development for Facebook, Grindr, Samsung’s Milk Music, Viacom’s video suite and deploying the Asia-Pacific headquarters for multi-billion dollar giant, Pivotal Labs. OPEN’s leadership is part of the most prestigious blockchain groups from Blockchain at Berkeley to the Blockchain Research Institute, and have contributed to a number of on-chain projects and Solidity libraries.

About OPEN

OPEN bridges the gap between traditional application developers and the coming era of blockchain technologies. By providing a standardized infrastructure that interfaces the two architectures, developers can realize the benefits of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies using OPEN’s platform without having to retool their application’s stack from the ground up. For more information about OPEN, www.openfuture.io or join us on Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit.

About Draper Dragon Fund

Draper Dragon, formerly known as DFJ Dragon Fund China, is a private equity and venture capital firm specializing in seed, startup, early stage, mid stage, and bridge financing. The firm seeks to invest in technology companies, companies throughout a widely-defined technology arena, mobile internet, clean tech, media, and internet software and services companies. It prefers to invest in China-centric companies. The firm typically invests between $3 million and $5 million. The firm provides operating guidance to the portfolio companies from time to time. Draper Dragon was established in March 2006 and is headquartered in Menlo Park, California with additional offices in and Shanghai, China.

Media Contact: Transform Group, [email protected]

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.