Zero-knowledge-powered blockchain system Miden has raised $25 million to spin out of Polygon Labs and grow its own ecosystem. 

The raise was led by a16z crypto, 1kx, and Hack VC, with participation from Finality Capital Partners, Symbolic Capital, and P2 Ventures, among other firms, according to a statement on Tuesday. 

Angel investors, including MakerDAO co-founder Rune Christensen, Aptos CEO and co-founder Avery Ching, and EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan, also pitched in. 

The funds will go toward advancing the development of the Miden protocol—a new independent project born out of Polygon Miden, a ZK-optimized rollup that scales the Ethereum blockchain. 

A zero-knowledge rollup is a scaling solution that enables a blockchain to run more quickly by bundling together network transactions and processing them off the base chain.

The Miden protocol aims to serve institutions through its privacy-preserving technology, which grants applications the ability to execute not only public, but also private, transactions—a feature its founders say distinguishes the protocol from other decentralized platforms.

“With ambitions to rival Solana, Sui, and Aptos… building independently [from Polygon Labs] naturally positions Miden to attract the capital and focus needed to compete at the highest level,” Polygon Labs founder Sandeep Nailwal said Tuesday in a statement. 

The newly raised funds will also go toward financing an incentive program for early adopters of the Miden protocol, as well as toward building critical infrastructure for the network, such as wallets, wallet adapters, and bridges.

Miden also plans to grow its team from 17 to 25 people, aiming to bolster its marketing efforts and expand its ecosystem. 

This project's raise and spinning out from Polygon Labs comes as decentralized finance gains traction among institutional investors.

Twenty-four percent of institutional investors reported participating in the DeFi sector in a recent poll from strategy consulting firm EY Parthenon. Meanwhile, 50% of respondents who were not actively engaging with DeFi at the time of the survey said they planned to do so over the next two years.

Just four months ago, DeFi protocols’ combined total-value locked—a popular metric for measuring network activity on DeFi protocols— hit its highest level in three years, nearing $250 billion, DeFi Llama data shows. 

Miden protocol is in its final alpha testnet phase as of the time of writing, its founders said in their statement. 

Miden's mainnet will tentatively launch sometime later this year. The protocol will be integrated with Polygon's AggLayer, an aggregated network that connects layer-1 and layer-2 chains with shared liquidity.

The protocol plans to do an airdrop in the future, granting 10% of its native token's total supply to stakers within its ecosystem and holders of POL, the gas and staking token of Polygon's main proof-of-stake chain, according to Miden's statement.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair

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