Addressing the issue of cross-chain communication, Vancouver, Canada-based blockchain firm LayerZero Labs has raised $135 million in a Series A+ funding round led by Sequoia Capital, FTX Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz.
In Brief:
- Along with Sequoia, FTX, and A16z, VCs such as Coinbase, PayPal, Tiger Global, and Uniswap joined the Series A+ funding round.
- LayerZero will accelerate the development of a decentralized omnichain interoperability protocol.
- It intends to combine apps of gaming, NFT marketplaces & media apps for the transactions to take place on multiple blockchains.
“Our mission is to connect every [smart] contract on every chain,” says Bryan Pellegrino, LayerZero Labs’ CEO and cofounder.
Coinbase Ventures, PayPal Ventures, Tiger Global, and Uniswap Labs are among the other world’s most prominent venture capitalists that have invested. LayerZero Labs is now worth $1 billion.
LayerZero provides a protocol that connects decentralized applications (dApps) from various blockchains. The funding will help to accelerate the development of a decentralized omnichain interoperability protocol.
Users, data, and liquidity have frequently been fragmented across various apps on different chains due to a lack of crypto infrastructure.
The current funding round brings LayerZero Labs one step closer to its goal of making cryptocurrency more accessible to end-users and accelerating the exponential adoption of digital assets.
LayerZero also reportedly allows users to interact with dApps on multiple blockchains, which Ryan Zarick, the company’s chief technology officer and co-founder, describes as a “messaging layer” that “seamlessly communicates” without the user even realizing it.
So, with LayerZero, Ethereum applications will now be able to access liquidity on Serum, the decentralized exchange (DEX) built on Solana.
LayerZero intends to bring together applications such as gaming, NFT marketplaces so that they can be used across multiple blockchain realms.
DeFi will support trading, borrowing, and lending across multiple blockchains. For games and media dApps, high-throughput transactions will take place on one blockchain, with the ability to transfer, buy, and sell NFTs on other blockchains with the most liquid markets.
LayerZero still operates a bridge called Stargate, which it recently launched. In less than two weeks, the bridge has sent over $264 million in transfers and has a $3 billion market capitalization.
LayerZero currently supports seven networks, including Ethereum, Avalanche, and Fantom. Solana and Terra will be integrated in about four weeks, answered Bryan Pellegrino, LayerZero Labs’ CEO and cofounder.
The majority of cross-chain communication today occurs on so-called bridges, which solve interoperability by locking assets from one chain and issuing tokens of equal value on another, creating additional levels of centralization and security vulnerabilities.
The Ronin bridge was recently exploited in the largest crypto hack in history, involving over $600 million in crypto funds.
