The funding round was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z and major crypto venture firm Paradigm.
Optimism, a layer-2 scaling solution for the Ethereum network, has secured $150 million in a Series B funding round, the blockchain platform announced Thursday.
The round was co-led by prominent crypto investors Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Paradigm. In a detailed update shared on Medium, the company said the financing values the blockchain firm at $1.65 billion.
After over a year on mainnet, our milestones keep adding up: $1B in gas fees saved for users, thousands of smart contracts deployed, three separate forks…
And now: funds raised to the tune of $150M, giving us runway to keep shipping rain or shine.https://t.co/pBC2jmXtnh
— Optimism (@Optimism) March 17, 2022
Optimism’s network has been live for over a year, during which the layer-2 solution has helped users save more than $1 billion in gas fees. The success of its technology has also enabled thousands of smart contracts to be deployed on the platform.
The project’s open-source code has spawned three notable forks, keeping the platform prominent within the Ethereum ecosystem.
According to the Medium post, the Optimism team now plans to take their cross-network work to the next level. They said this will involve strengthening the team and expanding development efforts.
With this financing, the startup joins the ranks of recent crypto unicorns. Its continued growth comes amid renewed momentum in the NFT and DeFi sectors. Scaling solutions like Optimism play a critical role by helping users and projects reduce transaction costs that can otherwise be prohibitive on the Ethereum network.