EigenLayer, a Seattle-based blockchain infrastructure startup, raised a $100 million Series B round from Silicon Valley heavyweight Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
Founded in 2021, EigenLayer is developing an Ethereum-related technology known as “restaking.” The company has not yet launched its product but is generating plenty of attention — and investment dollars.
Here’s how the company describes its tech, via a blog post:
“EigenLayer provides blockchain developers with access to the highly crypto-economically secure and decentralized network that powers Ethereum, which enables them to more easily launch new protocols and applications with strong assurances of reliability and scalability. This supercharges the entire crypto ecosystem with both a higher quantity and quality of use cases, which ultimately delivers to end users safer and more useful crypto products, while supporting decentralization.”
The company is led by founder Sreeram Kannan, a former professor at the University of Washington who led the UW’s Blockchain Lab. The first employees at EigenLayer also worked at the lab.
Andreessen Horowitz invested out of its a16z crypto fund.
“We’re excited to partner with Sreeram and the whole team on building a platform that unlocks a new dimension of open innovation on top of Ethereum,” a16z’s Ali Yahya wrote in a blog post.
EigenLayer previously raised $50 million in March in a round led by Blockchain Capital, Bloomberg reported.
Funding to crypto startups fell substantially amid the broader crypto downturn but there is recent optimism as Bitcoin and other assets see rising value.
