ZetaChain, a San Francisco-based developer of a public EVM-compatible L1 blockchain, raised $27m in funding. The investment round saw participation from Blockchain.com, Human Capital, VY Capital, Sky9 Capital, Jane Street Capital, VistaLabs, CMT Digital, Foundation Capital, Lingfeng Capital (known for investing in SendingLabs and Binance Labs), GSR, Kudasai, Krust, and others.
ZetaChain intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts. Also, it will further bolster its chain-agnostic platform, which promises to be a game-changer in the blockchain sphere.
“ZetaChain’s purpose is to simplify managing assets and data across multiple blockchains, which remains a complicated and fragmented process that’s hindering hundreds of millions of new users joining the web3 ecosystem,” said Ankur Nandwani, ZetaChain core contributor. “Our EVM-compatible cross-chain smart contracts alleviate these issues by allowing decentralized app developers to build services that are faster, more secure, and easy to use.”
Connects Bitcoin, Cosmos, and Ethereum
ZetaChain started in 2021 and has close to 150 contributors from all over the world. Some of the core contributors include Ankur Nandwani (ex-Coinbase, Brave, 0x, and co-founder of Basic Attention Token), Panruo Wu (early contributor to THORchain), and Brandon Truong (ex-BuzzFeed, Udacity, Yada). Other core members include former employees of Cosmos, Ignite, Consensys, and multiple other blockchain projects.
ZetaChain’s goal is to establish a fresh benchmark for blockchain interoperability, allowing users to oversee their assets and data through a unified platform, regardless of the blockchain’s origin or storage, and without the necessity for bridges or wrapped tokens. This encompasses blockchains lacking smart contract capabilities, such as the Bitcoin network and Dogecoin.
The standardised interoperability offers developers notable benefits, as they can manage a single contract spanning all chains, thereby reducing the potential points of vulnerability. By incorporating ZetaChain’s Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible smart contract layer and omnichain toolkit, developers gain the capacity to seamlessly integrate Bitcoin smart contracts. This opens up a realm of opportunities for individuals who were previously limited to Bitcoin, enabling them to leverage their Bitcoin holdings within the wider scope of the DeFi ecosystem.
The ZetaChain ecosystem has over 27,000 dApp contracts currently deployed on the platform. These represent a diverse range of third-party decentralised applications, including cross-chain DeFi, NFTs, universal web3 social, identity, and gaming protocols. Already, more than 1.7 million users have participated on the ZetaChain testnet, which has seen over 13 million transactions completed to date.
