LayerZero Labs – the company behind the leading messaging protocol LayerZero – announced it has raised $120 million in Series B funding, which valued the company at $3 billion. This funding round included participation from 33 investors, including a16z crypto, BOND, Christie’s, Circle Ventures, Lightspeed, OKX Ventures, OpenSea Ventures, Samsung Next, and Sequoia Capital, amongst others.
LayerZero is known as a messaging protocol that allows for interoperability and facilitates seamless cross-chain messaging across countless blockchains. And it provides the underlying infrastructure needed for decentralized applications (dApps) to work with multiple blockchains. And by utilizing LayerZero, developers are able to create projects that exist across multiple blockchains without the need for an intermediary to facilitate cross-chain interactions.
This fund round will play a major role in escalating LayerZero’s continued growth and will be leveraged for increasing the headcount at LayerZero Labs as well as deepening its presence in the APAC region. And this expansion will enable LayerZero to lock in its presence as the premier messaging protocol and globally promote the development of the digital asset ecosystem.
In the first year since launching, LayerZero’s platform has experienced exponential growth. And it facilitated over 2 million messages being relayed across more than 30 chains, secured more than $7 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL), and processed over $6 billion in transactional volume. Plus LayerZero has seen over 30,000 contracts deployed on its testnet and 3,500 on its mainnet, with 10,000+ unique applications and hundreds of thousands of unique end users.
LayerZero Labs also received backing from some of the strongest crypto-focused companies in the entire world, including Binance, Blockdaemon, Christie’s, Circle Ventures, Coinbase, OpenSea Ventures, and many more. And LayerZero’s protocol is utilized by some of crypto’s largest on-chain applications, including the majority of the world’s largest decentralized exchanges (DEXs), such as PancakeSwap, Sushiswap, TraderJoe, and Uniswap.
KEY QUOTES:
“Imagine a future where a single user-facing application can harness the speed of Solana, the security of Ethereum, and the cheap file storage of Arweave, while also being fully abstracted to the user. This is our vision, made possible by the LayerZero protocol that seamlessly connects all blockchains and enables chain-agnostic applications to be built across various blockchains to create a best-in-class user experience. The days of choosing one chain to build on are over; the future is omnichain applications.”
“Before the advent of the internet, computers existed in fragmented and disconnected data centers, much like many blockchains today. LayerZero is revolutionizing blockchains by creating one unified ecosystem, like the internet, that connects each blockchain’s developers and user community. The core principles of the LayerZero protocol are permissionless, censorship-resistant, and immutable. During this latest round, we sought out investors who shared these values and our vision of a fully connected blockchain world. We are excited to work alongside them and our community to scale the LayerZero protocol and connect all blockchains everywhere.”
— Ryan Zarick, Co-Founder and CTO of LayerZero Labs
“There is no longer any question that the future of crypto and web3 is multi-chain. LayerZero has built critical infrastructure that makes that possible. LayerZero is already handling more transactions to and from major ecosystems than the native bridges. We’re thrilled to continue supporting the LayerZero team as they break down barriers between chains.”
— Ali Yahya, general partner at a16z crypto
“LayerZero is becoming a key infrastructure for crypto, evidenced by the growing number of developers and applications on its platform. We continue to be impressed by the team’s technical prowess, and we are proud to deepen our partnership with LayerZero as they strengthen the crypto ecosystem.”
— Shaun Maguire, partner at Sequoia Capital
