Starkware has raised $75 million in its series B funding round, according to an announcement from the firm on Twitter.
Top VC Funds Lead Series B
Paradigm led this round of funding, just as it did during Starkware’s Series A round in 2018. Other returning investors include Pantera Capital, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, DCVC, and Wing Capital.
Starkware also attracted Three Arrows Capital and Alameda Research as investors for the first time.
Previous seed rounds and funding rounds have raised approximately $36 million for Starkware. The new batch of $75 million brings the company’s total raised capital up to $111 million.
Starkware has also partnered with notable Ethereum firms and projects such as ConsenSys, Infura, and Metamask.
Scaling Ethereum
Starkware has numerous projects underway, largely focused around ZK-starks, which are used to scale up blockchain like Ethereum.
Ethereum has suffered from numerous congestion issues, largely brought on by the rising popularity of DeFi apps in the summer of 2020. The Ethereum network is now saturated by thousands of retail investors who are using DeFi exchanges and dApps in search of lucrative financial opportunities.
Ethereum also has native scaling improvements underway, such as proof-of-stake and sharding. However, Starkware is one of the most notable second-layer efforts working on this issue.
Disclaimer: The author held ETH at the time of writing.
