Ethereum L2 StarkWare Completes Sequoia Led Funding Round And Secures $50M

Per a press release, Ethereum second layer solution StarkWare has completed a $50 million Series C funding round led by Sequoia Capital. A few months ago, the company conducted a Series B round securing $75 million. Thus, the company has an estimated value of $2 billion.

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One of the most important Venture Capital firms in the financial sector, Sequoia Capital has helped companies, such as Google, WhatsApp, and Apple, to achieve their success. The partnership with StarkWare began in 2018 when the firm took part in its Series A.

StarkWare operates as an Ethereum L2 scaling and privacy solution with a zero-knowledge proof protocol used to power dYdX, Sorare, Immutable X, and other major DeFi protocols running on that network. These protocols leverage a “highly-efficient method for blockchain-based computation”, according to the release. Uri Kolodny, Co-Founder and CEO at StarkWare said:

Congested blockchains and high transaction fees are the biggest impediment to building mass-scale crypto apps for all, to meet the everyday needs of the general population. StarkNet will change this. It will lead to a blockchain building boom that will make blockchain apps as much a part of our everyday lives as smartphone apps.

Their recent funding round will help the company to mitigate one of the most noticeable issues with Ethereum and other blockchains, their transaction speed. This could usher a new era of crypto adoption and consolidate Ethereum’s position as the main hub for the financial sector of the future.

Eli Ben-Sasson, Co-Founder and President At StarkWare, claimed the following on their recent Series C funding round and how this Ethereum solution could create more opportunities for everyone:

The math-based technology invented by StarkWare is the invisible hand that increases blockchain’s bandwidth, giving it the capacity to serve everyone. This valuation makes us more confident than ever in our vision. By empowering blockchains to scale globally, people of any economic status will gradually be able to stop entrusting data into the hands of big companies, and control it themselves instead.

Ethereum Into The Mainstream With StarkWares’ Solutions?

The funds secured in this Series C will be used to support the introduction of the StarkNet platform, the release claims. In that way, any user will be able to design and create their own Ethereum and blockchain-based application. The company expects that this technology be used to “power a new generation” of dApps.

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Mike Vernal, a partner at Sequoia Capital, celebrated the firm’s participation in this round and the long-term partnership formed with StarkWare. Vernal believes Ethereum and its multiple use cases need to become more scalable to attract more users and achieve its “potential as a global, decentralized computer”.

We are excited to announce our Series C of $50M at $2B.

A big thanks to our lead investor, @sequoia, our wonderful follow-on investors, and the dozens of ecosystem partners and collaborators who participated in this round, for their vote of confidence in our products and tech. pic.twitter.com/CuaeMSf2s6

— StarkWare (@StarkWareLtd) November 16, 2021

In that sense, Vernal called StarkWare the market leader in terms of scalable solutions, specifically Zero-Knowledge (ZK) roll-ups. The Sequoia partner added:

(StarkWare is) iterating at a breakneck pace to power a wide range of applications (…). The upcoming release of StarkNet – a fully permission-less, decentralized scaling solution for Ethereum – will make it so any developer can build apps that are orders-of-magnitude more scalable than L1-based apps.

As of press time, Ethereum trades at $4,196 and follows the general market sentiment to the downside with a 2.5% loss in the daily chart.