Simba Chain connects to $25m series A

Simba Chain, a US-based enterprise blockchain deployment platform spun out of University of Notre Dame, has picked up $25m in a series A round featuring the university’s Pit Road Fund.
Stanford Law School Venture Fund, an investment vehicle for Stanford University’s law school, also took part in the round, which was led by Valley Capital Partners.
A long list of private investors, including unnamed people associated with Stanford University, filled out the round of participants.
Founded in 2017, Simba has built a cloud-based blockchain-as-a-service platform for deploying distributed applications on multiple blockchain platforms.
The company’s scientific co-founders Ian Taylor and Jarek Nabrzyski are professors in Notre Dame’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Taylor is also a professor at Cardiff University.
Simba will use the proceeds of the round to scale its development, sales and marketing capabilities. It also plans to commit resources to new opportunities such as non-fungible tokens.
Steve O’Hara of Valley Capital Partners is joining Simba’s board of directors, as are Phil Koen and and Mike Lempres.
Notre Dame Pit Road Fund backed a $1.5m seed round for Simba in 2019, investing together with Elevate Ventures, First Source Capital and unnamed angel investors.
Joseph Grundfest, the W A Franke professor of law and business at Stanford, said: “This is one of the more exciting blockchain companies I have seen in a while. Simba Chain solves a very big problem; most companies do not know how to adopt or manage blockchain technology.”