LayerZero Labs, the company behind the blockchain messaging protocol LayerZero, said Tuesday it has raised $120M in a Series B funding round at a $3B valuation . Some 33 investors participated in the latest round, including the cryptocurrency unit of Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and the venture capital arm of stablecoin issuer Circle. Proceeds will go towards boosting the Vancouver-based company's headcount as well as deepen its presence in the Asia-Pacific region, it said. LayerZero provides cross-chain messaging across blockchains, offering the underlying infrastructure needed for decentralized applications (dapps) to live across multiple blockchains. As such, developers can create projects that exist across multiple blockchains without the need for an intermediary to facilitate cross-chain interactions. "The days of choosing one chain to build on are over; the future is omnichain applications," said LayerZero Labs Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Ryan Zarick. Since its launch, LayerZero has facilitated over 2M messages being relayed across more than 30 chains, secured over $7B in total value locked and processed more than $6B in transactional volume. The fundraise comes even though venture capital into crypto firms plunged last year against a backdrop of numerous high-profile bankruptcies and a broad market downturn.
