A16z, FTX and Sequoia Lead $135M Round for LayerZero at $1B Valuation

CORRECTION (March 30, 19:28 UTC): A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the amount of money raised was $155 million.

LayerZero, a startup addressing the problem of interoperability between blockchains, has raised $135 million at a $1 billion valuation in a round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), the venture capital arm of crypto exchange giant FTX and Sequoia Capital, the company announced Wednesday.

• Other backers in the Series A extension round included Coinbase (COIN) Ventures, PayPal (PYPL) Ventures, Tiger Global and Uniswap Labs.
• LayerZero offers a protocol that unites decentralized applications (dapps) across multiple, disparate blockchains.
• The startup recently launched Stargate, a cross-chain liquidity transfer protocol.
• LayerZero announced a $6 million Series A round co-led by Multicoin Capital and Binance Labs last September as the company came out of stealth.
• “By unlocking cross-chain composability, LayerZero is enabling developers to build decentralized applications that simply weren't possible before," said Ali Yahya, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, in the press release.

Read more: A16z Alum Katie Haun Raises $1.5B for 2 New Crypto Venture Funds