Astria is a shared sequencer network that replaces centralized sequencing, enabling many rollups to share a single decentralized network of sequencers that is simple and permissionless to join. The company has announced the successful completion of a $12.5 million strategic fundraise led by dba and Placeholder VC, with participation from RockawayX and returning investors.
The funding also included returning investors Maven11, 1kx, Figment Capital and Batu. Angels included Yuki, DCBuilder, Hasu, Will Price, Robert Miller, Mert, Jason Yanowitz and Mike Ippolito. Plus, Bankless Ventures also participated.
This funding round will be used to continue building the Astria Sequencing Layer and the Astria Stack, to help anyone deploy a permissionless rollup without relying on a centralized sequencer.
And the blockchain ecosystem has seen an explosion in Layer 2 rollups, which offer faster speeds and lower costs while reducing congestion on Layer 1 blockchains. Since Layer 2 rollups have largely relied on a single centralized sequencer, concerns arise over the possibility of censorship, points of failure, and lack of transparency.
Astria’s modular Sequencing Layer takes on these issues by providing a decentralized network of sequencers to participate in transaction ordering for multiple rollups. And the Astria Stack is a development stack that includes all components necessary to deploy an EVM rollup using the Astria Sequencing Layer, a decentralized, shared sequencer that can batch transactions for many rollups while remaining performant and censorship resistant.
Celestia-based rollup Forma – the destination for fully onchain NFTs – has already launched on the Astria Stack. And since May, about 42,000 NFTs have been minted or purchased on Forma, with a total bridge volume of 3 million $TIA.
