Ethereum Layer 2 Developer StarkWare Taking a discover to Triple Valuation to $6B

The Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution supplier StarkWare is reportedly elevating at the least $100 million at a $6 billion valuation. 

StarkWare Raising $100M At a $6B Valuation

Traders are showing big interest in regarded as one of Ethereum’s most anticipated Layer 2 tasks.

Based mostly on a Thursday listing by Israeli newspaper Calcalistech, the ZK-Rollup scaling know-how developer StarkWare is at show elevating at the least $100 million at a $6 billion valuation.

The most recent funding round, which is aloof ongoing, comes handiest three months after StarkWare raised $50 million at a $2 billion valuation. That round closed in November and became once led by top project capital agency Sequoia, with participation from Paradigm, Three Arrows Capital, and Alameda Research. About a of the startup’s shareholders comprise Coinbase, Intel, Mobileye CEO and Intel senior VP Amnon Shashua, and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Seven months earlier than that, in March, StarkWare raised $75 million in a Sequence B funding round led by Paradigm. 

Despite having declined many investment offers earlier than, the Israeli startup is now reportedly having a discover to carry at the least $100 million in unusual capital, which could perhaps perhaps triple its old $2 billion valuation to around $6 billion. Commenting on the rumored carry, a firm insider talking on stipulations of anonymity told Crypto Briefing:

“From what we hear, there are hundreds of approaches from doable merchants. Most aren’t well-liked, but now we comprise a sense that one thing attention-grabbing could perhaps perhaps be in the works. It’s laborious to mediate aid to early November, perfect earlier than the $2 billion valuation and StarkNet coming to mainnet. Hobby from merchants and devs rocketed. So a valuation that could perhaps perhaps’ve been laborious to train a couple of months previously perfect could perhaps perhaps now be realistic.”

StarkWare declined to portion any crucial parts on merchants or how the firm would employ the unusual capital, but an unnamed representative talked about that the team is at show focusing on its ZK-Rollup-basically based StarkEx product. 

Unlike other Layer 2 scaling choices, StarkEx leverages ZK-STARKs, additionally customarily called zero-knowledge, scalable, clear arguments of knowledge, to aid Ethereum scale and compose above 100,000 transitions per 2d with vastly decreased transaction price costs.

Ethereum has faced smartly-documented scaling issues over the final year, main competing Layer 1 blockchains devour Terra, Solana, Avalanche, NEAR, and Fantom to surge in recognition amid surging gasoline expenses on the tip gorgeous contract community. The so-called “exchange Layer 1” networks captured a essential half of Ethereum’s market portion and person heart-broken as retail interest in cryptocurrencies peaked in slack 2021. Moderately than scaling the heart-broken chain, Ethereum has committed to leveraging heaps of sidechains and Layer 2 choices devour StarkWare’s StarkEx to terminate aggressive. 

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this half owned ETH and several other other cryptocurrencies.