LG’s IT arm taps Tiger Global-backed QuickNode for web3 pursuit

Regardless of crypto’s badly tarnished popularity following FTX’s collapse, some giant companies are warmly embracing its underlying distributed ledger expertise. LG CNS, the IT options subsidiary of the South Korean conglomerate, has shaped a strategic partnership with QuickNode, a blockchain deployment platform aiming to carry Internet 2.0 companies into web3.

Apart from asserting the partnership, LG additionally revealed that it has invested in QuickNode by way of LG Expertise Ventures for an undisclosed quantity. So far, QuickNode has raised round $115 million. Upon elevating $60 million from 10T Holdings, Tiger International and others, the corporate was valued at $800 million in January.

LG CNS‘s system integration and digital transformation companies are wide-ranging, having constructed options in cloud, SaaS, synthetic intelligence, large knowledge, good metropolis, safety, web3 and blockchain. The corporate initiated its blockchain enterprise in 2015 and unveiled its personal blockchain platform Monachain three years later.

Not like public, permissionless blockchains corresponding to Ethereum, Monachain is custom-built for enterprises and is utilized to conventional industries like finance, logistics and power. A few of the options powered by Monachain embrace cellular id playing cards, NFTs, digital foreign money platforms, used battery distribution historical past administration, issuance of healthcare data paperwork and electron contract programs.

South Korea’s tech-savvy inhabitants positions it as a really perfect testing floor for blockchain functions. The federal government’s plans to switch bodily IDs with digital options authenticated by blockchain have given business gamers a lift of confidence.

It’s no shock, then, that Monachain has secured greater than 50 company prospects, together with a number of of the most important Korean banks, corresponding to NH Noghyup Financial institution, Woori Financial institution and KB Financial institution, in addition to LG’s telco unit known as LG U+. In 2022, NongHyup Financial institution began working with LG CNS to work on a digital pockets answer that helps the circulation of its central financial institution digital foreign money (CBDC).

QuickNode just isn’t LG CNS’ first foray into the crypto area. For one, the LG-owned IT arm has been working with U.S.-based decentralized identity firm Evernym on decentralized id, a approach to put management over private data again into the palms of customers through the use of blockchain.

As well as, final 12 months, LG CNS launched its blockchain-based encrypted cellular ID card service for employees and launched token-as-a-service, which helps companies difficulty NFTs on Monachain. Altogether, the 2 areas of companies have attracted round 10 enterprise prospects within the finance, telecommunications and manufacturing sectors.

In the meantime, LG Electronics, LG CNS’s sister firm, said in 2022 that it had formally added cryptocurrency and blockchain as its new areas of enterprise.

For QuickNode, the partnership with an LG subsidiary is a main alternative for its growth in Asia.

“By partnering with LG CNS, we’re setting a course for a future the place blockchain expertise is built-in into each digital aspect, particularly within the dynamic APAC market,” Alexander Nabutovsky, co-founder and co-CEO of QuickNode, mentioned in a press release.