Press Release: AltLayer secures $14.4M in strategic fundraising round

• AltLayer leads promising research and groundbreaking innovation on rollup infrastructure with EigenLayer, Babylon Chain, RiscZero, etc.
• ALT token, recently launched on Binance, ushers in a new era for the project.

19 February 2024 — SINGAPORE: AltLayer, an open and decentralized protocol to launch native and restaked rollups with optimistic and zk stacks, has raised $14.4M in a strategic fundraising round co-led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC.

Founder Dr. Yaoqi Jia said: “AltLayer accelerates scaling to make dApps deployed on Ethereum truly limitless! Restaked rollups are now at the core of this vision. With the creation of hundreds of thousands of rollups, we must create business models where rollups can sustain themselves while delivering clear value to the bottom-line of builders and end-users: be it security, customizability, or massive scale and speed. By leveraging EigenLayer’s restaking mechanism, we will be able to do this successfully in a more secure and decentralized manner. We’re elated that visionaries in the industry see our potential and have chosen to back us once more as we take on a new chapter in our journey.”

The fundraise, which closed in September 2023 comes at a critical time as the company eyes global team expansion amidst the growing number of strategic partnerships and key projects in development. Other investors in the round include HashKey Capital, OKX Ventures, Primitive Ventures, Bankless Ventures, SevenX, MASK, IOSG, and TRGC among others. dao5 and Breyer Capital, two of the previous-round investors also participated in the latest round.

Luke Pearson, General Partner, Polychain Capital said: “AltLayer is undertaking novel research and development that inspires us to think about how much we can scale with the right tools. Be it rollups-as-a-service (RaaS) launcher, or restaked rollups — devs now have access to modular and powerful tools and frameworks that they can wield as per their needs without having to take on a tedious building journey. We have been a backer of AltLayer from the early days and co-leading the latest round shows our conviction in the project. I cannot wait to see how AltLayer shapes the broader rollup landscape with their offerings.”

Alexander Pack, Co-Founder, Hack VC said: “We’re incredibly excited to be co-leading this fundraising round. Rollups have proven to be the optimal way to bring scalability and customizability to Ethereum, and AltLayer is committed to taking rollups to the next level. Their vision of restaked rollups will bring improved decentralization, faster finality, verifiability and interoperability to rollups by leveraging security from Ethereum. With the leadership’s joint expertise across research and product development, we’re confident that we’re backing the right team to tackle this massive opportunity.”

Since its inception, AltLayer has had a consistent track-record with pioneering research on rollup infrastructure. Today, its flagship product — restaked rollups — provides a tangible, clear-cut way forward in scaling up Ethereum, accelerating the growth and performance of dApps. Its key AVS products namely MACH, VITAL, and SQUAD — powered by EigenLayer — will bring greater decentralization, interoperability, fast finality, and security to thousands of rollups.

The team has undertaken another challenge: to recreate the restaked rollups framework outside Ethereum. They are building a decentralized verification layer that leverages Bitcoin staking for security in partnership with Babylon, which will enable users to stake BTC on Bitcoin to secure external networks. AltLayer is additionally collaborating with RISC Zero to bring “on-demand” ZK fraud proofs to optimistic rollups.

Among the company’s 2024 priorities is to make headway on all these products — expanding the rollup universe and easing the builder journey.

AltLayer is helmed by Dr. Yaoqi Jia, a blockchain veteran with notable leadership stints in Parity and Zilliqa. Dr. Jia previously raised seed funding worth $7.2M from backers such as Polychain Capital, Jump Crypto, Breyer Capital, dao5 and others to pilot their journey into building rollup infrastructure.

Since then, AltLayer has evolved with its product offerings — setting its sights on becoming the top rollup infrastructure provider for Ethereum and beyond. AltLayer’s native token ‘ALT’ was launched in early 2024 and will be used to further power its ecosystem via staking, transaction fees, protocol incentivization, and governance.