Space and Time is the leader in decentralized data processing solutions for enterprises.
Time and Space is a Web3-native platform for data that uses business logic to leverage a cryptographic protocol called Proof of SQL. It announced that it raised $20 million in strategic funding from Microsoft’s M12 fund.
The round also included crypto investment firm Framework Ventures and HashKey. SevenX Ventures, SevenX Ventures and Polygon were also involved. Stratos and Hash CIB are among the other participants.
It uses the Chainlink pricing oracle platform and other sources to pull data out of blockchain protocols ( decentralized apps () and off-chain systems with the goal of delivering enterprise grade use cases to smart contracts applications.
Space and Time raised 10 million earlier this year in a seed round led by Framework Ventures. Participants included Digital Currency Group (DCG), SamsungNext and IOSG Ventures.
Space and Time was launched as part of Chainlink Labs’ “Startup with Chainlink” initiative that supports the creation of Web3 startups.
The team claims that the new funding will be used for engineering and product development acceleration, with more than 90% of the funds going to customer and product adoption of Space and Time.
Scott Dykstra, Space and Time’s CTO, explained that Proof SQL allows the decentralized warehouse to return not only query results but also a SNARK cryptographic verification that the data was authentic and that the query was executed accurately.
Dykstra explained to Decrypt that this allows an external verifier such as a smartcontract or oracle network to “double-check” that the data warehouse is not tampered with.
The protocol can be used in many areas of the rapidly-evolving Web3 space ( DeFi and GameFi), according to the CTO. This opens up new use cases.
For DeFi. Proof of SQL promises new and complex financial instruments that can be created on-chain. DeFi protocols will become more sophisticated and require large data volumes to be accessed off-chain. However, the results of those computations can be brought back on-chain to aid in trade decisioning.
Proof of SQL is a gaming technology that allows smart contracts to query end-game results as well as in-game events. Developers can, for instance, offer incentives to players by using Space and Time as a trustless intermediary and create new interactivity between smart contract and gaming servers.
Dykstra did not specify which blockchains the project would serve. He said that it will be serving “popular EVM chains” such as Ethereum and Avalanche, Polygon and Polygon. He said that Sui support is being worked on at the moment and that Solana was also on the roadmap.
Space and Time will also allow central systems’ business logic to be automated and linked directly to smart contracts. Microsoft is focusing on this area because blockchain technology has applications across many industries.
Michelle Gonzalez, Corporate Vice President and Head of M12 said that blockchain technology has applications in many industries. She also stated that Space and Time was building the foundation for this work to flourish in a Web3 environment.
Space and Time will also be integrated with Microsoft’s cloud computing services Azure, providing its customers an easy way to access, manage and perform analysis on blockchain-native information.
An announcement made by Decrypt states that Azure will become the “go-to cloud platform for building Web3 projects” because of seamless integration between major Blockchains and much greater volumes off-chain data.
