Taiko, an 'Ethereum-Equivalent ZK Rollup,' Raises $15M

Taiko, a layer-2 scaling solution provider for the Ethereum blockchain, has raised $15 million in a series A funding round, adding to the growing amount of investment allocations to crypto projects from venture-capital firms.

The fundraise was led by Lightspeed Faction, Hashed, Generative Ventures and Token Bay Capital, according to a press release. Other investors in the round included Wintermute Ventures, Presto Labs, Flow Traders, Amber Group, OKX Ventures, GSR and WW Ventures. The latest round brings Taiko's total fundraising across three rounds to $37 million.

Taiko says it provides an "Ethereum-equivalent ZK rollup" – described by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in a 2022 post as the holy grail of technological achievement for these scaling networks. A "rollup" is a term for a layer-2 chain, which acts like an auxiliary network to provide faster and cheaper transactions that can then be settled to a main or "base" blockchain like Ethereum. The "ZK" refers to "zero-knowledge" cryptography, a hot trend in blockchain design.

In January, Taiko debuted its "Katla" test network, billed as the last key milestone before a main-network, or mainnet, launch expected soon.

But there's a lot of competition. The website L2Beat lists 44 active layer-2 projects, and another 34 "upcoming projects," including Taiko.

Notably, Taiko claims to use a technology known as "based" sequencing, where a key component known as the "sequencer" is driven by the base, or layer-1, blockchain. In the architecture of blockchain networks, a sequencer is a component of a layer-2 chain that works like an air-traffic controller, bundling up transactions so they can be finalized in a data block.

In many of the rollups currently in operation, a centralized sequencer is used – seen as a potential single point of failure or censorship vector.

“Amongst an explosion of new rollups, Taiko stands out due to its passionate community, paired with a based sequencing architecture, which uniquely simplifies the L2 value chain, streamlining trust assumptions and removing friction for developer adoption,” said Samuel Harrison, founding partner at Lightspeed Faction.