Taiko has acquired $15 million via a Series A round, bringing its total outside investments to $37 million.
The initiative’s developers claim to be working on an Ethereum-equivalent ZK rollup with “based sequencing” – both described as being technological innovations. However, Taiko currently faces an increasingly competitive market that is crowded with so-called Ethereum L2 networks.
Taiko, an L2 scaling solution provider for the Ethereum (ETH) network, is reporting a $15 million Series A round, which is further adding to the amount of investment allocations to crypto initiatives from VC companies.
This latest round has reportedly been led by Lightspeed Faction, Hashed, Generative Ventures and Token Bay Capital.
Other backers of the investment round included Wintermute Ventures, Presto Labs, Flow Traders, Amber Group, OKX Ventures, GSR and WW Ventures. As noted in the update, the funding round brings Taiko’s total fundraising across 3 rounds to $37 million.
Taiko explains that it offers an Ethereum-equivalent ZK rollup – which is described by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin as a key tech achievement for these scaling networks. A “rollup” is a technical name given to L2 chains, which serves somewhat like an auxiliary network to offer quicker and more cost-effective transfers which may be finally settled to a main or “base” chain such as Ethereum.
The “ZK” is used to describe the term “zero-knowledge” cryptography, a fast-growing innovation in the blockchain/DLT sector.
Earlier this year, Taiko had introduced its Katla testnet, which is considered to be a final key milestone prior to the launch of a mainnet (anticipated to be live soon).
However, there’s plenty of competition in the markets. The online site L2Beat reportedly mentions 44 different active L2 initiatives, as well as an additional 34 “upcoming” initiatives (which also includes Taiko).
As mentioned in the announcement, Taiko aims to leverage a tech innovation called “based” sequencing, where a primary component called the “sequencer” is reportedly driven by the base, or L1 blockchain.
Samuel Harrison, founding partner at Lightspeed Faction stated:
“Amongst an explosion of new rollups, Taiko stands out due to its passionate community, paired with a based sequencing architecture, which uniquely simplifies the L2 value chain, streamlining trust assumptions and removing friction for developer adoption.”
