Scroll, an Ethereum scaling challenge that makes use of zk-rollup expertise, has raised $30 million in a Collection A funding spherical because it plans to launch a testnet.
Sharing the information completely with The Block on Thursday, Scroll mentioned Polychain Capital led the funding, with Bain Capital Crypto, Robotic Ventures, Geometry DAO and others taking part.
A number of angel traders, together with the Ethereum Basis’s Ying Tong and Carlos Aria, and members of the Ethereum group, together with Anthony Sassal, Ryan Adams and Santiago Santos, additionally joined the spherical.
Scroll co-founder Sandy Peng declined to touch upon whether or not the funding was raised through an fairness spherical or a easy settlement for future tokens (SAFT) sale.
Testnet plans
With recent capital in hand, Scroll plans to extend its group dimension and launch a testnet.
The present headcount of Scroll is 20 and the challenge is trying to rent a number of individuals throughout totally different features, together with engineering and operations, mentioned Peng. She mentioned the testnet is scheduled to launch within the second half of this 12 months.
Scroll was based early final 12 months by Peng, Ye Zhang and Haichen Shen. It goals to scale Ethereum utilizing zk-rollups, a Layer 2 expertise that bundles Ethereum transactions off the primary chain to assist a bigger variety of transactions at a decrease price.
StarkWare and Matter Labs may be seen as Scroll’s closest rivals — each use the zk-rollup scaling approach.
When requested what Scroll’s distinctive benefit over StarkWare is, Peng mentioned, “we’re constructing a zkEVM answer versus StarkWare’s zkVM.”
“Which means builders within the Scroll ecosystem will get pleasure from an ‘EVM [Ethereum Virtual Machine] equal’ expertise; any dapp that runs on zk Layer 1 may be deployed on Scroll,” she mentioned.
As for Matter Labs’ zkSync community, it additionally has EVM compatibility like Scroll, however Scroll is extra developer-friendly, in accordance with Peng.
She mentioned, with Scroll, Solidity builders can copy a wise contract byte code from Ethereum and deploy it on Scroll with out making any modifications to it. “We’re EVM equal or native EVM by the Ethereum Basis’s definition,” she mentioned.
Particular particulars of Scroll’s expertise can be introduced within the subsequent few months, mentioned Peng.
The Collection A spherical brings Scroll’s whole funding so far to round $33 million. The challenge has beforehand raised about $3 million from angel traders, Peng mentioned.
Scroll’s fundraising is the newest for an Ethereum scaling challenge amid persevering with investor curiosity within the crypto sector. Final month, Optimism, an Ethereum scaling challenge that makes use of a unique approach generally known as optimistic rollups, raised $150 million in Collection B funding at a $1.65 billion valuation.
Immutable, an Ethereum scaling challenge targeted on NFTs, additionally raised $200 million in Collection C funding at a $2.5 billion valuation final month. In February, Ethereum scaling challenge Polygon raised $450 million in a token sale, and in November, Matter Labs raised $50 million in a Collection B funding led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
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