Constellation Labs, operating as Caldera, a rollups-as-a-service provider backed by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and others, has acquired Hook, the development team behind the now-shuttered Hook Odyssey protocol. Hook Odyssey focused on perpetual futures for memecoins and NFTs, deployed as a rollup using the Arbitrum Orbit framework.
The acquisition will help Caldera build Metalayer, an Ethereum rollup infrastructure platform designed to unify the fragmented Layer 2 and Layer 3 ecosystems, Caldera said Thursday. This is Caldera's first acquisition. Formal discussions and due diligence of the deal began in September and concluded last month, Caldera co-founder and CEO Matt Katz told The Block, adding that the deal is complete.
Katz did not disclose the size of the deal or how it was financed, but it follows shortly after Caldera announced a $15 million Series A funding round in July. Caldera has raised a total of $25 million in funding to date. Meanwhile, Hook has raised $3 million from investors, including Collab+Currency, Lattice Sfermion and Maven11.
As a rollups-as-a-service platform, Caldera helps developers quickly launch application-specific chains based on technology stacks such as Optimism's OP Stack, ZKsync's ZK Stack, Arbitrum Nitro and Polygon Chain Development Kit. Caldera has helped over 50 projects launch their rollups, including Manta Pacific, Injective, ApeChain, Plume Network, Kinto, RARI Chain, and Zero Network by Zerion.
Now, Caldera is focused on building Metalayer, which aims to improve the developer experience for multi-rollup decentralized applications. Metalayer aims to facilitate enhanced coordination across Optimistic and ZK frameworks and seeks to unify Ethereum's scaling ecosystem.
"The Hook Odyssey protocol was shut down so that the team could contribute to Caldera's existing and new product efforts. Specifically, the Hook team is now working on Metalayer, of which Caldera is an early contributor," Katz said.
Caldera is developing Metalayer amid Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake's new consensus layer upgrade proposal, known as "Beam Chain," which some have memetically referred to as "Ethereum 3.0." If approved and implemented, Beam Chain could eliminate the need for rollups entirely by providing arbitrary scalability for Ethereum's Layer 1.
When asked about how the Beam Chain proposal could affect Caldera and its plans for Metalayer, Katz said: "There will always be reasons why projects want to launch their own chains, and rollups remain the #1 solution for this. Beam doesn't change that reality, but there's still much to unpack regarding its potential in this evolving landscape. We're excited to see how new developments at the base layer continue to enhance the rollup ecosystem."
Out of the six members of Hook's team, five — including cofounders Regynald Augustin and Jake Nyquist — have joined Caldera, bringing its total headcount to 20, Katz said. He added that he plans to double the team to around 40 by next year, by hiring across various functions, including growth, marketing and engineering.
Caldera's legal counsel at Fenwick & West LLP advised on the Hook acquisition deal, Katz said.
Crypto merger and acquisition (M&A) deals are on the rise, as The Block reported earlier this month. A mix of strategic and market-driven factors has contributed to this increase, industry insiders said at the time.
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