Thursday 31 March 2022 11:11 am

Crypto firm raises $135m in round led by FTX Ventures, Sequoia and A16z

As Bitcoin makes a lower low and tries to find an area of demand, it seems the investment phrase “sell in May and go away” is being front run. Is this the beginning of a period of consolidation for crypto after several months of “up only?” Or, are markets simply de-risking ahead of today’s Federal Reserve meeting to determine interest rates?

Layerzero Labs has closed a bumper $135m funding round led by crypto investment heavyweights FTX Ventures, Sequoia and A16z.

The firm said the funding round, which included participation from Coinbase Ventures, Paypal Ventures, Tiger Global and Uniswap LABS, values Layerzero Labs at $1bn.

Founded by Caleb Banister, Ryan Zarick and Bryan Pellegrino in 2021 Layerzero Labs is an interoperability protocol which enables transactions between different blockchains without the need for intermediaries.

“By unlocking cross-chain composability, Layerzero is enabling developers to build decentralized applications that simply weren’t possible before,” commented Ali Yahya, a general partner at the Silicon Valley investment firm Andreessen Horowitz.

“Bryan, Ryan, Caleb and the whole Layerzero team have thoroughly impressed us with their commitment to blockchain interoperability and the elegance of their protocol. We can’t wait to see the app innovation that springs from it,” she added.

An explosion of interest in the crypto space has given rise to a range of new applications for blockchain such gaming, NFT marketplaces and social media apps. However, the infrastructure needed to support cross-chain communication has struggled to keep pace resulting in users, data and liquidity fragmented across applications deployed on different chains.

LayerZero Labs recently launched Stargate a cross-chain liquidity transfer protocol which secured $3.4bn of assets within ten days of launch. The firm said Stargate has sent over $246m in transfers over Layerzero’s cross chain protocol.

“Composability is a defining characteristic in blockchain technology, which Layerzero enables,” said Ramnik Arora, Investor, FTX Ventures. “Layerzero allows smart contracts on one chain to seamlessly and securely leverage the network of another chain, increasing the value of the entire blockchain ecosystem.”

Bryan Pellegrino, the chief executive and co-founder of Layerzero Labs called the funding round a “massive step forward” for the company.