# SubQuery raises $9M for Polkadot data protocol

Decentralized data aggregator SubQuery has concluded a $9 million funding round to build Polkadot’s first data aggregation layer, a move that could strengthen data indexing for the emerging interoperability network.

The investment funds will be used to continue building SubQuery’s data indexing infrastructure for all Polkadot and Kusama applications, the company announced Wednesday. SubQuery also announced the investment would help it expand its technical abilities and support the open-sourcing of its software.

This investment round was co-led by Arrington XRP Capital, Digital Currency Group and Stratos Technologies with additional participation from Hypersphere Ventures, NGC Ventures, Wintermute and Skynet Trading. Previously, SubQuery successfully raised $1.8 million in a private seed round that concluded in March of this year. Seed investors included DeFi Alliance, The LAO and P2P Capital, among others.

SubQuery’s primary aim is to expand access to blockchain data on Polkadot and Kusama by creating new markets for data indexing and provisioning. Arrington XRP Capital, which invested in the Moonbeam parachain, said SubQuery has the potential to become a critical infrastructure for all Polkadot parachains and applications. Within the Polkadot network, parachains plug into one main blockchain, offering a similar concept as the hub-and-spoke model seen in airports.

Related: Will Polkadot save decentralized finance from Ethereum’s scaling problems?

The Polkadot ecosystem has received considerable attention of late as Kusama kicked off its sixth batch of parachain auctions on Sept. 1. The parachain process sees users vote for projects by locking up Polkadot’s native DOT tokens for a specific term as a means to bootstrap their favorite initiatives.

Polkadot is a top-ten cryptocurrency project with a total market capitalization of roughly $29 billion. DOT soared to nearly four-month highs earlier this week before a Bitcoin (BTC) flash crash put a damper on the entire crypto market.