• Bitlayer

  Participated · Series A · Oct 2024

  Founded in October 2023, Bitlayer Labs is building a Bitcoin Layer 2 network based on the Bitcoin Virtual Machine (BitVM) to expand application programmability and tap into Bitcoin security. The team launched mainnet V1 in early 2024 and released a trust-minimized BitVM Bridge in July. Bitlayer has released integrations with chains including Arbitrum, Base, Cardano, and Sui and plans to ship a V2 of its mainnet later this year. The project raised capital through both private and public rounds; the fresh capital will be used for operational expansion, team growth, and ecosystem development. As of this raise, Bitlayer's total funding stands at $29.91 million across private and public rounds. Bitlayer is positioned as the first Bitcoin Layer 2 based on Bitcoin finality, offering a native environment through technologies such as OpVM, Finality Bridge, and RtEVM. It has implemented OpVM, which combines fraud proofs (BitVM) and validity proofs (OP_CAT) to enable Bitcoin L1 verification of arbitrary computations. The project launched Mainnet‑V1 on April 15 and now hosts over 280 deployed DApps across infrastructure, wallets, DeFi, NFTs, gaming, metaverse, and RWAs. Bitlayer reports partnerships with more than 30 Web3 platforms including Hacken, AWS Cloud, Ankr, Polyhedra, Babylon, Particle Network, and Meson. The team is preparing the imminent launch of Bitlayer V2, a Bitcoin‑native rollup whose state transitions are protected by OpVM. The company has raised a total of $25 million to date, funds the team says will accelerate development, scalability, and user accessibility. Bitlayer Labs offers a Bitcoin Layer 2 solution based on the BitVM paradigm. Its core objective is to address the trade-off between security and Turing completeness in BTC Layer 2 through cryptographic innovations and blockchain protocol engineering. The company aims to become the computation layer for Bitcoin, introducing ultra-scalability while inheriting Bitcoin’s security. Bitlayer targets a high-throughput, low-cost transaction experience for users. It intends to use recent funding to expand growth and development efforts. The Series A brought the company’s total capital raised to $16M. Bitlayer is a Bitcoin Layer 2 infrastructure provider building Layer 2 infrastructure for Bitcoin. The company plans to launch its mainnet on April 5. It will introduce an ecosystem incentive program called Ready Player One. Bitlayer announced completion of a $5 million seed financing. The round was led by Framework Ventures and ABCDE Capital, with participation from StarkWare, OKX Ventures, Alliance DAO, UTXO Management, Asymmetric Capital, Kenetic Capital, Pivot Global, Web3Port, Mindfulness Capital, C6E Capital, PAKA, Comma3 Capital, Kronos Ventures, dozens of institutions, and individual investors including Dan Held, Ryan Selkis, and Dan McArdle.

• Alex

  Participated · Equity · Mar 2024

  ALEX develops a decentralized finance layer tailored to the Bitcoin ecosystem. The protocol leverages Layer2 solutions, cross-chain bridges, oracles and additional infrastructure to enable Bitcoin-native DeFi. The team intends to continue building its financial layer on Stacks. The company completed a strategic financing to fund continued protocol and infrastructure development. The article does not disclose operating metrics such as revenue or user counts. The financing is positioned to accelerate ALEX's technical roadmap on Bitcoin-focused stacks. ALEX is deploying its mainnet on Stacks to bring permissionless DeFi to Bitcoin, offering fixed-rate, fixed-term lending and borrowing without risk of liquidation. The platform also includes an advanced decentralized exchange, yield farming, and a launchpad where community members vote on token listings. ALEX’s native token $ALEX opened at $0.32 for the Stacks community on January 10 and will be available for staking at mainnet on January 17. On testnet, over 19,000 unique addresses accessed ALEX and more than 110,000 transactions were processed. The protocol has completed audits with CoinFabrik and Lease Authority and aims to activate dormant bitcoin holdings, citing the potential to mobilize over $1 trillion of idle bitcoin. Financially, ALEX has secured recent financing including a $5.8M round and an additional $2M oversubscribed private round, and plans a retail IDO.

No current team members are available.