Cross-chain messaging protocol developer LayerZero Labs has raised one other $120 million, in accordance with an Apr. 4 announcement. The corporate plans to make use of the capital to extend its headcount and develop its attain into the Asia-Pacific area. The corporate had beforehand raised $135 million in March 2022.
— LayerZero Labs (@LayerZero_Labs) April 4, 2023
LayerZero Labs is finest recognized for its cross-chain messaging protocol, LayerZero, which is usually used to create asset bridges between blockchain networks. It’s also the developer of the Stargate multi-chain bridge.
With the completion of this fundraising spherical, the corporate now has a $3 billion valuation. Over 33 buyers participated within the newest funding spherical, together with Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, BOND, Circle Ventures, Christie’s, OpenSea Ventures, and Samsung Subsequent.
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Ryan Zarick, co-Founder and CTO of LayerZero Labs, mentioned the brand new fundraise will assist to create a multi-chain atmosphere the place purposes could make one of the best use of every community’s distinctive advantages:
Think about a future the place a single user-facing software can harness the pace of Solana, the safety of Ethereum, and a budget file storage of Arweave, whereas additionally being totally abstracted to the person.
He continued, “That is our imaginative and prescient, made attainable by the LayerZero protocol that seamlessly connects all blockchains and allows chain-agnostic purposes to be constructed throughout numerous blockchains to create a best-in-class person expertise. The times of selecting one chain to construct on are over; the long run is omnichain purposes.”
The problem of securing cross-chain messages has turn out to be acute in recent times, as greater than $3 billion was stolen from blockchain bridges in 2022, in accordance with a report from Chainanalysis. LayerZero has tried to resolve this drawback by utilizing a relayer and oracle to safe messages, the place a message is just confirmed if each the relayer and oracle agree that it’s legitimate.
On January 31, LayerZero acquired 37.58% of the vote to turn out to be Uniswap’s bridge protocol for cross-chain governance between Ethereum and BNB Chain, coming in second behind Wormhole. On March 30, Gnosis introduced that LayerZero would combine with its multi-bridge platform, Hashi, to additional improve the safety of blockchain bridges.