Microsoft’s M12 led $20M investment in web3 platform Space and Time • TechCrunch

Space and Time, a decentralized data platform, has raised $20 million in strategic funding to help businesses grow through smart contract technology.

“Our mission is to make smart contracts smarter and expand the use cases of business logic through smart contracts,” Nate Holiday, co-founder and CEO of Space and Time, said to TechCrunch. “We see a world where smart contracts will operate the business logic of the world through advanced automation.”

In software, business logic helps manage the exchange of information between an end user interface and databases.

Space and Time will use its “Proof-of-SQL” cryptography to allow business logic in traditional centralized systems to be automated and connected directly to smart contracts, Holiday noted. It will also integrate the platform with Microsoft Azure to provide users with an on-ramp to access and use its blockchain data.

The capital raise was led by Microsoft’s venture fund M12 and included investors like Framework Ventures, HashKey, SevenX Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Polygon and Avalanche’s ecosystem fund Blizzard, among others. In late July, Space and Time raised $10 million in a seed round led by Framework Ventures.

“If you think about it, the global digital transformation was led by Microsoft,” Holiday said. “They have been doing this for decades – driving automation of business logic and business transformation – so we look at this as an exciting time to expand on that and include blockchain operations and smart contracts in addition to what already exists in centralized databases today.”

The platform is a part of the Startup with Chainlink program and will be working closely with the oracle network to extend the capabilities of smart contracts so blockchain developers can build multi-chain decentralized applications (dApps) alongside analytical insights in a low-cost, decentralized way.

“With the total addressable market for trust-minimized applications in the trillions of dollars, providing core infrastructure to Web3 developers is crucial for scaling and meeting this global demand,” Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, said in a press release.

The platform isn’t open to the public, yet, but there will be a limited release available at the end of this year for DeFi and gaming protocols, Holiday said. “Then we’re going to move into a test net phase where we’ll launch Proof-of-SQL in the Spring of 2023 and our full production launch in the Fall of 2023.”

In the near term, Space and Time wants to help web3 dApp developers simplify their data ecosystems and architectures, Holiday said. “In the long run, see a world where business logic, automation and verification is all done through smart contracts.”