Avalanche ecosystem accelerator Colony is celebrating its biggest raise to date, having welcomed $18.5 million of investment from a slew of VC firms.

The company, which aims to lay the foundations for the next wave of decentralized applications (dApps) built on Avalanche, received capital from the likes of Shima Capital, Hashkey, GBV Capital, and Bixin Ventures in a round led by the Avalanche Foundation.

Colony plans to use the funds to bootstrap an array of promising projects currently building on Avalanche (AVAX). Some capital will also be earmarked to finance Avalanche liquidity pools in the coming months.

Last month, Colony clarified its vision in a Medium post, saying it aimed to deliver “an incentivized foundation for novel applications on the Avalanche platform with a first of its kind funding mechanism.” To this end, the accelerator wants to empower the community to invest in the most valuable initiatives at the ground-level development stage, a juncture previously reserved for VCs and angel investors.

The company’s open governance mechanism guarantees that capital is allocated across the Avalanche ecosystem for the sole benefit of ecosystem projects and community members, with value generated by Colony investments rerouted to the community via airdrops, a buyback mechanism, and staking rewards.

Reflecting on the latest raise, Colony CEO Elie Le Rest said, “We are delighted to announce that we’ve established close ties with the Avalanche Foundation itself. We’ll be sharing deal flow to create a more fertile ground for projects building on Avalanche, the fastest, highly customizable, smart contracts platform in the blockchain industry.”

Ava Labs’ General Manager Nicolas Lemaitre, meanwhile, praised Colony’s community-centric approach: “It’s great to see Colony seeking to create a decentralized democratic financial ecosystem by giving the community access to early-stage projects in seed and private rounds,” he said, adding that this was “very much aligned with Avalanche’s core value: community first.”

AVAX liquidity pools will receive 30% of the raised capital with 10% staked on the blockchain and another 10% allocated to the top ten Avalanche projects as ranked by market cap. 50% will be deployed to support the best teams and projects building on the blockchain.

News of the raise follows confirmation that Colony will be listed on the MEXC Global launchpad in early December. The accelerator’s native token, CLY, is used for both DAO governance and liquid exposure to Colony’s value flow.

It has been an important month for the layer-1 blockchain often touted as a rival to Ethereum. At the start of November, the Avalanche Foundation launched Blizzard, a $200 million fund dedicated to accelerating development, growth, and innovation across the ecosystem of builders and users. AVAX also reached an all-time high after crashing into the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap; it is currently in 11th place, having been pegged by Dogecoin.

Colony will look to capitalize on the Avalanche feel-good factor when it starts allocating funds to selected projects early next year.

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