Blockspaces Raises $1.2M Seed To Connect Business To Blockchains

Funding attracts Silicon Valley VC’s, Tampa Tech Notables, and Fortune 500 TalentTampa, FL: March 25, 2021 - BlockSpaces, a Tampa, Florida-based blockchain integration platform, has completed a $1.2M seed round of financing. The funds will be used to scale operations, make key hires, and speed development of the company’s core software that connects business applications and data to multiple blockchain networks. The platform reduces barriers to deploying, managing and participating in distributed networks by leveraging a “plug and play” API connector framework built for blockchain.

The round, which brought together West Coast institutional capital with Tampa Bay tech “all stars”, was led by San Francisco Bay area-based Leadout Capital, with participation from Silicon Valley-based Brighter Capital, and BlockFund Ventures, a Tampa based group of innovation tech investors, including former AgileThought executive, James Olson, and co-founder, Ryan Dorrell. Several strategic private investors filled out the round including Tribridge co-founder, Tony DiBenedetto, and Greg Pierce, former Chief Cloud Officer at Tribridge affiliate, Concerto Cloud Services, who also serves as Chairman of BlockSpaces’ Board of Directors. “We are excited to join the team at BlockSpaces,” said DiBenedetto. “They have been pioneers in blockchain and will continue to help many companies accelerate innovation.”“The roots and the soul of BlockSpaces will always be ecosystem cooperation and a diverse network of participants, just like it is for blockchain”, said co-founder, Gabe Higgins. “We could not be happier with how that is represented with the group of investors behind this funding round.” The company will be hiring up to 10 new positions on their core development team along with, CTO, Chris Tyler, who left a 16 year tenure at Fortune 500 emerging technology, cloud and blockchain giant, IBM, to join the startup.Large enterprise companies have deployed blockchain networks and are realizing significant ROI as they streamline their operations, but these networks require participation of middle-market suppliers, vendors, products and partners to realize their full potential. Due to a variety of barriers, mid-market participants in this ecosystem are falling into the gap of the technology adoption curve. This stifles the growth of these networks for all businesses that are needed in the network. The BlockSpaces platform allows the easy integration of enterprise applications and blockchain networks and hides the complexities associated with managing blockchain technology in a business environment. “We know every participant in a blockchain network needs to collaborate and share transactions in order to deliver on the promise of the transparency and trust this technology provides across what we know will be a multi-blockchain world” said Rosa Shores, BlockSpaces Co-Founder/CEO. “How these multiple blockchains will come together, co-exist and share data in a business setting is a challenge that is further compounded when companies lack the budget and know how to implement and manage this emerging technology. We want to be the solution for business leaders and enterprise developers who need to connect to a blockchain but aren’t sure how to execute with their existing resources.”BlockSpaces was founded in 2017 by Higgins and co-founder/CEO, Rosa Shores. The financing is also notable as it represents the first woman-led blockchain company to raise over $1 million in the state of Florida (Source: Crunchbase), and joins a growing number of blockchain start-ups that are emerging in the Sunshine State. “We live in a new global world where technology, thankfully, continues to erase the lines between geographic borders, and diversity of thought needs to be at the center of business” said Rosa Shores, CEO of BlockSpaces. “I look forward to a breakthrough year for underrepresented founders in this industry, regardless of where they happen to be located.”"This last year has proven that finding talented founders building innovative companies has no geographic boundary," noted Ali Rosenthal, Managing Partner of Leadout Capital. "Our criteria is not simply following others to a trendy city, but to evaluate standout and diverse leaders everywhere who we regard as gritty, focused and empathetic. We see these attributes and more in Rosa and Gabe with BlockSpaces and are enthusiastic to lead the round and extend our commitment to blockchain technology." Leadout Capital was founded in 2018 by Rosenthal and is a $27M early stage venture capital fund with a focus on backing "non-obvious," resilient founders working on solving problems in overlooked and under-served markets.About BlockSpaces, Inc.BlockSpaces believes in a future where every business will transact with more trust, transparency and security. Our mission is to blockchain-enable traditional business applications to leverage the unique features and benefits that various enterprise blockchain networks provide. Through our B2B integration platform, we manage blockchain connections, data flow and configurations, so our customers can plug-and-play into any existing system. BlockSpaces is simplifying the blockchain integration experience for all business applications and use cases.About Leadout CapitalLeadout Capital was founded in 2018 to back “non-obvious”, resilient founders with deep customer insights, who pursue software driven solutions to an unmet customer need in large end markets. We support them with world-class network access and experience-based advice. We work to unlock the tremendous value inherent in diversity in order to expand the size of the market of new ideas and products in the startup ecosystem.Media Contact:BlockSpaces; Rosa Shores, 727-483-3563, rosa@blockspaces.io