Empire Newsletter Exclusive

Tuesday Morning Exclusive: Chronicle has raised $12 million in seed funding.

The funding round was led by Strobe (formerly Blocktower Venture Capital) with participation from Brevan Howard, 6th Man Ventures, and others.

Chronicle is the first oracle on Ethereum, founded by a team, including Niklas Kunkel, from the original MakerDAO team (now Sky).

What is an Oracle? Kunkel explains it as akin to putting your phone on airplane mode, where apps lose much of their functionality.

He states: “The utility of apps we expect comes from their ability to send and receive data outside the sandbox of a phone, and Oracles allow blockchains to do the same.”

Chronicle also serves as a data infrastructure provider for tokenized assets, making it relevant to both DeFi and Real World Assets (RWAs). It features its own RWA oracle called “verified asset.” Notable users of Chronicle include M^0, Centrifuge, Superstate, and Securitize.

This dual audience strategy might seem unusual, but Kunkel aims to integrate the two client bases, viewing them as interconnected. He observes that DeFi protocol revenues fluctuate wildly with market cycles, complicating sustainable business operations.

Kunkel sees an increasing trend of projects adopting products similar to traditional finance fixed income, which could stabilize revenues.

With rising interest in RWAs and supportive regulatory changes, Kunkel believes Chronicle is in an “ideal” position to assist institutions entering this space. He noted a general trend among the top 50 financial institutions seeking RWAs exposure, particularly highlighted by Fidelity’s recent actions. Priorities for the team over the next 12 to 18 months center around this growing sector.