TON Network Extension TAC Secures $6.5 Million Funding

TON network extension TAC has successfully raised $6.5 million in a seed funding round led by Hack VC and Symbolic Capital. This funding aims to provide TON and Telegram users with in-app access to Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) applications.

Participants in the funding round include notable investors such as Primitive, Paper Ventures, Karatage, Animoca Ventures, Spartan Capital, TON Ventures, and Ankr, alongside angel investor Sandeep Naiwal, co-founder of Polygon. Details about the valuation and structure of the round were not disclosed.

The founding team consists of TOP (The Open Platform), a TON venture builder, and Michael Egorov, the creator of Curve. TAC aims to simplify development on TON, connecting Ethereum's developer community with the TON blockchain and leveraging its integration with Telegram, which boasts approximately 950 million global users.

The funds will be allocated for scaling marketing, developer relations, and technical development. The goal is to connect various EVM applications across DeFi, GameFi, SocialFi, and RWAs, in addition to enabling wallet abstraction for easier self-custody of both TON and Ethereum assets. The infrastructure will be partially secured by TON liquid staking tokens, incorporating restaking into the ecosystem.

TAC’s public testnet phase is expected to launch this week at Devcon, with a mainnet launch projected for the first quarter of 2025.

“Since announcing our launch earlier this year, we’ve seen incredible levels of interest from developers, builders, and investors who understand the project’s potential to expand the possibilities of web3 development,” said Pavel Altukhov, TAC CEO. “We’re excited to debut the public testnet at DevCon 2024 and demonstrate to developers the 950 million reasons to build on TAC.”

Telegram's Crypto Expansion

Recently, Telegram has increased its presence in the crypto space, with numerous gamers using the platform for tap-to-earn games like Hamster Kombat, Notcoin, and Catizen to earn corresponding tokens on the TON blockchain. Additionally, Telegram introduced a mini-app store and an in-app browser supporting web3 pages in July. According to recent research by Bitget, the daily transaction volume on the TON blockchain has surged twelvefold, from 100,000 to 1.2 million, over the past year.