Ethcore, an Ethereum-based startup, has raised $750,000 in a preliminary, pre-seed funding round led by venture capital firms Blockchain Capital and Fenbushi Capital, Bitcoin Magazine reported. 

Ethcore is a new venture built by prominent figures of the Ethereum ecosystem including Dr. Gavin Wood, Co-designer of the Ethereum protocol and the EVM, and Inventor of the Solidity language; Dr. Jutta Steiner, Chief Security Manager, Ethereum, and Co-founder, Provenance; Dr. Aeron Buchanan, Head of Operations, Ethereum; Kenneth Kappler, Communications Manager, Ethereum and TJ Saw, CEO, OxLegal.

Earlier this year, it announced its flagship blockchain technology suite, Parity – its initial fully-featured, Ethereum-compatible, blockchain implementation. In March, it announced the release of Parity 1.0 (Ethcore emphasized it to be ‘beta’ quality), adding that the team is now working on Civility, the next release in the Parity series, to be rolled out soon.

Wood told CoinDesk that the funding will help EthCore expedite the 1.0 release of Parity, and to help it create new ‘development libraries’ that could be useful to the growing number of firms seeking to leverage the platform for private and consortium-based project.

"We're excited to see the progress that Ethcore is making on bringing Ethereum technology to the next level through their full implementation of the Ethereum protocol in Parity, and look forward to seeing what the team will continue to bring”, Bitcoin Magazine quoted Buterin.

The startup aims to further develop the Ethereum blockchain stack and assist partners who intend to innovate using the smart contract platform. It will focus on solving some of the current issues facing the Ethereum blockchain (and other blockchains) such as privacy and scalability.

“We have developed high-level designs for tackling scalability and privacy that can help us overcome some of the problems and help in various settings. They'll be implemented over this year. We'll expect a much more scalable public blockchain in the next couple of years”, Gavin Wood told Bitcoin Magazine. “Full privacy is still a research area with some interesting ideas that we’ll be watching closely – but semi-trusted architectures on which we are working will do for many cases, particularly in the area of permissioned ledgers.”

Wood added that the startup is currently working with BNP Paribas on possible applications of Ethcore’s technology within the world of finance. In addition, several applications within the Etheruem ecosystem, such as Digix, Augur, Grid Singularity, and Slock.it are also looking at Ethcore’s technology.