Blockchain messaging protocol LayerZero raises $120M, hitting $3B valuation

LayerZero Labs, a web3 messaging protocol, has closed a $120 million Sequence B spherical, elevating its valuation to $3 billion from $1 billion, the corporate stated on Tuesday.

In contrast to Internet 2.0 messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram, this messaging protocol lets customers ship several types of messages between blockchains, like cross-chain interactions, eliminating the necessity for intermediaries.

“It’s pure arbitrary information; it’s like internet-packaged messaging between computer systems, not like instantaneous messaging,” Bryan Pellegrino, CEO and co-founder of LayerZero Labs, advised starcrypto. “It’s the motion of information.”

LayerZero connects over 30 mainnet blockchains, together with two non-Ethereum Digital Machines (EVMs), Aptos and Solana, Pellegrino famous.

The protocol is utilized by on-chain purposes like decentralized exchanges, together with the likes of PancakeSwap, Sushiswap, Dealer Joe and Uniswap. The platform has secured over $7 billion in whole worth locked and processed over $6 billion in transactional quantity, the startup stated.

Since launching a few yr in the past, “a whole bunch of 1000’s of distinctive customers” have used the protocol, Pellegrino stated.

It took the protocol about 7.5 months to hit 1 million messages; then it took 2.5 months to hit the subsequent million messages, Pellegrino stated. “Every thing else is quickly evolving. By the top of this yr, I’m extraordinarily assured that we’ll have single months, if not single weeks, the place there’s 1,000,000 messages.”

The spherical was raised for “purely strategic alignment,” Pellegrino stated — which means they didn’t really want the cash. The Sequence B spherical noticed 33 traders taking part, together with a16z crypto, Circle Ventures, Sequoia Capital, OpenSea, Samsung Subsequent, Christie’s and BOND. The corporate, which beforehand raised $135 million in March 2022, has raised over $250 million thus far, he added.

“We needed to make a push into gaming and the APAC market, and all of this [capital] is basically to develop the corporate there,” Pellegrino stated. “If we need to be that layer that connects every little thing, gaming performs an enormous position in that.”

Within the long-term, Pellegrino hopes LayerZero’s messaging protocol, and others, continues to create the infrastructure that permits purposes to construct extra advanced constructions. “Our job is to construct the primitive that permits builders to create the most effective methods they will, whether or not its video games, DeFi purposes or one thing else.”