A16z, FTX and Sequoia Lead $135M Round for LayerZero at $1B Valuation
The blockchain interoperability protocol first emerged from stealth last September.
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Umee aims to be a hub for cross-chain DeFi. (Akinori UEMURA/Unsplash)
CORRECTION (March 30, 19:28 UTC): A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the amount of money raised was $155 million.
LayerZero, a startup addressing the problem of interoperability between blockchains, has raised $135 million at a $1 billion valuation in a round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), the venture capital arm of crypto exchange giant FTX and Sequoia Capital, the company announced Wednesday.
- Other backers in the Series A extension round included Coinbase (COIN) Ventures, PayPal (PYPL) Ventures, Tiger Global and Uniswap Labs.
- LayerZero offers a protocol that unites decentralized applications (dapps) across multiple, disparate blockchains.
- The startup recently launched Stargate, a cross-chain liquidity transfer protocol.
- LayerZero announced a $6 million Series A round co-led by Multicoin Capital and Binance Labs last September as the company came out of stealth.
- “By unlocking cross-chain composability, LayerZero is enabling developers to build decentralized applications that simply weren't possible before," said Ali Yahya, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, in the press release.
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