Source: Cointelegraph Original: "{title}"
Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (abbreviated as a16z) has announced a $55 million investment in the Web3 company LayerZero. LayerZero is a company that operates a cross-chain messaging protocol. This investment was announced by a16z general partner Ali Yahya on April 17 on the X platform.
a16z has previously invested in LayerZero multiple times, including an initial investment in March 2022 and a follow-up investment in LayerZero's Series B funding in April 2023. However, the parties did not disclose the valuation for this round of financing.
Based in Canada, LayerZero was valued at $3 billion in its Series B funding, with 33 investors participating. In addition to a16z, notable institutions such as Circle Ventures, OKX Ventures, OpenSea Ventures, and Sequoia Capital were also involved.
In January 2025, LayerZero reached a settlement with the FTX estate, ending a long-standing dispute. Previously, FTX had accused LayerZero of "manipulating sell-off trades" for profit during the FTX liquidity crisis. In June 2024, LayerZero launched its native token ZRO.
Cross-chain protocols and chain neutrality continue to attract attention.
Cross-chain messaging protocols allow programs in different ecosystems to communicate with each other, making it a key technology for decentralized applications (DApps) and traders looking for seamless cross-chain exchanges.
Currently, competitors in the same space as LayerZero include several projects such as Wormhole, Stargate, Superbridge, and Connext.
Among these, Wormhole may be one of LayerZero's biggest competitors. The project completed a $225 million funding round in November 2023 with a valuation of $2.5 billion. Like LayerZero, Wormhole has also launched its own token (W) and conducted an airdrop, but it has attracted a number of scammers and counterfeit tokens. Chainlink has also launched a cross-chain interoperability protocol that supports messaging between blockchains.
An increasing number of companies are beginning to recognize the importance of a "full-chain" or at least "chain-neutral" architecture. For example, the crypto wallet Phantom, which initially focused on Solana, now supports six major blockchains, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. NFT infrastructure company Magic Eden has also expanded from its initial Solana ecosystem to multiple blockchain markets.
Related: Cryptocurrency exchange eXch to shut down over money laundering allegations.
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