Lumoz (formerly Opside), a blockchain scaling infrastructure project that helps developers launch zk-rollups, raised a pre-Series A funding round at a valuation of $120 million .
Investors in the round included OKX Ventures, HashKey Capital, KuCoin Ventures, Comma3 Ventures, Kronos Ventures, Kernel Ventures and Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, Lumoz said Monday. The funding round was valued at $6 million, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told The Block. A spokesperson for HashKey Capital confirmed the company’s participation in the round.
Lumoz began raising for the round in February and closed in March, co-founder Jeffrey Yang told The Block. It was structured as a simple Future Token Round (SAFT) deal, Yang said, adding that $120 million is a fully diluted token valuation.
Lumoz’s pre-Series A round comes a year after it raised $4 million in a seed funding round in April 2023, then known as Opside. Yang said the rebranding to Lumoz happened last October because the project was misunderstood as working on optimistic rollups when it was helping create zk rollups.
What is Lumoz?
Founded in March 2022, Hong Kong-based Lumoz is largely a blockchain scaling infrastructure provider. More specifically, it is a zk-rollup as a service (ZK-RaaS) platform that helps developers launch their own application-specific zk-rollups “with a single click”.
“We help others create zk-rollups and also provide the underlying modular compute layer,” Yang said. “There are substantial computational costs associated with zero-knowledge computing (ZKP) for ZK rollups, which often exceed data availability (DA) costs, and Lumoz’s modular compute layer aims to fill this gap by providing a modular computer support. »
Yang said layer 2 projects ZKFair and Merlin Chain already leverage Lumoz’s ZK-RaaS platform. Since Merlin Chain is a Bitcoin Layer 2 project, Yang said Lumoz can support all Layer 1 blockchains for scaling, not just Ethereum.
AltLayer can be considered one of Lumoz’s closest competitors, according to Yang. As RaaS platforms, AltLayer and Lumoz help developers create application-specific rollups using modular technology stacks. Existing rollups projects like Arbitrum, Optimism, and ZKSync, on the other hand, can be considered general-purpose rollups.
Lumoz said its platform is compatible with most types of zk-rollups, including Polygon CDK, zkSync, Scroll, and StarkNet.
Lumoz Plans and Token Launch Schedule
With new capital in hand, Lumoz plans to expand its current team of more than 30 people by hiring in engineering and business development functions, Yang said. Lumoz also plans to launch the mainnet of its compute layer in July, Yang added.
There was a points program underway at Lumoz last month. Yang said that all points can be converted into future tokens, adding that the conversion rate has not yet been decided. The token generation event is expected in August, he said.
Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet providing news, research and data. Since November 2023, Foresight Ventures has been a majority investor in The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to provide objective, impactful and current information about the crypto industry. Here is our current financial information.
© 2023 The Block. All rights reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.