Avalanche funding accelerator Colony is celebrating after raising a whopping $18.5 million in its latest round. The capital raised will be distributed across a range of promising projects currently building on Avalanche (AVAX), and will be used to fuel Avalanche liquidity pools in the coming months. Launched in Q3 of 2020, Avalanche is a layer-1 rival to dominant smart contract and dApp platform Ethereum (ETH). In little over a year, the network rose to 11th spot in the global crypto market cap rankings, while its native AVAX token appreciated over 25,000% in value since time of launch. The latest fund-aising efforts by Avalanche partners Colony are part of the firm’s efforts to foster growth within the blockchain’s burgeoning ecosystem. The capital-raising round was led by the Avalanche Foundation and attracted participation from noted crypto investment firms Shima Capital, GBV Capital, Bixin Ventures, and Hashkey.    Funding Avalanche’s Future As mentioned, Colony’s war chest will be directed to promising early-stage projects on Avalanche and used to provide liquidity for the blockchain’s various defi protocols. An index of up-and-coming projects will also be decided by a vote conducted by the Avalanche community, at which point 50% of Colony’s capital will be granted to the best ranked teams and projects. Liquidity pools on Avalanche will receive 30% of the raised capital, while 10% will be staked on the blockchain, and another 10% directed to the top ten projects building on Avalanche, ranked by market cap. The Avalanche community will also gain access to seed and funding rounds of early-stage projects through Colony. Colony CEO Elie Le Rest heralded the partnership with Avalanche, saying that the firm would be sharing deal flow to accelerate further growth for projects building on the blockchain network. 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.” Nicolas Lemaitre, General Manager at Ava Labs, added that Colony’s goals were aligned with the “community first” ethos of the Avalanche team. Lemaitre said: "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. This is very much aligned with Avalanche's core value: community first.”   DAO Evolution Colony has plans to evolve into a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) by the mid-point of 2022, and will launch its own subnet on the Avalanche blockchain. Colony will conduct a public token sale by the end of 2021, at which point the project will launch in earnest. Colony’s native CLY token will be used to provide airdrops to those staking their coins on Avalanche, and will be subject to a buyback mechanism. CLY will be the main token in Colony’s pending DAO structure, acting as an investment tool and the primary governance token. Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.