Dragon’s Den Youngest Investor Bags In $24M for Blockchain Firm

• Steve Barlette backed by co-founder Furqan Rydhan has raised $24M funding for a Blockchain Firm Thirdweb.
• The lack of enough digital infrastructure for start-ups to build their own blockchain platforms led Steve Barret alongside co-founder Furqan Rydhan to launch the tech firm.

Youngest Dragon in the Den tycoon has raised $24M in funding for his Blockchain Tech company which evaluates the company’s net worth at $136M.

The University drop-out Billionaire launched the Firm back in 2021 cheek by jowl with co-founder Furqan Rydhan after realizing there wasn’t enough tech infrastructure for start-ups to build their own Blockchain platforms. Steve told a news outlet:

Before Thirdweb if you’re a developer you have to learn a new coding language and it could take you a year or two years to build an application. Using Third web you can build an application in a few clicks. When there’s a gold rush you have people that are searching for the gold or you have people that are making the shovels.”

The funding for this round was led by Haun Ventures. Among other top investors included in the development are Crypto influencer, Mark Cuban and tycoon investor Gary Vaynerchuck. The team is also receiving backups from the e-commerce platform Shopify and  Crypto exchange Coinbase’s investment arm Coinbase Ventures and Polygon.

I think it’s fair to say both myself and Furqan as founders having the track record we have, we could have funded thirdweb ourselves, but the strategic support that we’re getting now from these partners is even more important to us than the capital itself,” Bartlett said.

Steve Barlette, born in Botswana was not cut back by controversies where the Blockchain and crypto firms have experienced major hacks as reported by Chainalysis. Up to July of this year, Chainalysis has reported  £1.6 billion worth of crypto stolen from hacks. Steve addressed the matter by saying:

The fundamental blockchain technology is incredibly secure. I think in web1, web2 or web3 there’s always going to be vulnerabilities to systems and technologies and I think that web3 as a technology actually solves tons of the security issues”

Popularly known for his “Diary of a CEO” podcast, Steve hit the limelight this year after successfully joining the BBC dragons Show as the youngest dragon. Steve had his first registered business at 18 years when he founded an online marketing agency called Social Chain – now valued at $600m. “If Dragon’s has taught me anything it’s that people invest in people and so I always bear that in mind whenever I’m raising funds for my own companies,” he said.