The LayerZero team behind the project raised $120 million in a Series B funding round. The cross-chain protocol was valued at $3 billion.
— LayerZero Labs (@LayerZero_Labs) April 4, 2023
The startup was backed by a16z Crypto, Sequoia Capital, Circle Ventures, Samsung Next, OpenSea, Christie’s and other investors.
The investments were structured as SAFE and token warrants, according to The Block.
The co-founder and CEO Bryan Pellegrino did not provide details on token-distribution timelines.
The team began talks about raising additional funding in May 2022.
Two months earlier, the firm was valued at $1 billion. The Series A round was led by FTX Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.
“We don’t need money. One of our main goals this year— is expanding into APAC and developing our gaming arm,” said Pellegrino.
The proceeds will also go toward expanding the team.
The protocol connects multiple blockchains, enabling dapps to transfer data across chains. According to LayerZero Labs, their project combines Polkadot’s economic efficiency with Cosmos’ security.
The Stargate bridge enables token transfers in a single transaction without locking, minting or burning, or the redemption of wrapped assets.
LayerZero supports Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, Fantom, Aptos, Arbitrum and Optimism.
The protocol has been integrated by Uniswap, SushiSwap and PancakeSwap.
The solution also supports NFT transfers via Omnichain Non-Fungible Tokens.
As of writing, the amount of funds deployed in the Stargate cross-chain bridge stands at $382.3 million. Two weeks after its March 2021 launch, the TVL TVL reached $2.5 billion, peaking at $4.17 billion in early April 2022.
Earlier, in January 2023, UniswapDAO members voted 62.3% for the Wormhole cross-chain bridge as the single linking bridge between networks for deploying the protocol on BNB Chain. 37% of the community voted for LayerZero, including Andreessen Horowitz.