A newly founded startup from the US, Layer, which makes the first developer tools that support full-stack decentralised applications with Web Assembly, has raised $6 million in funding. It will use the investment for its technology that will make all experiences on the internet inherently trustworthy.
The seed round was led by 1kx, with participation from Fabric Ventures, Arrington Capital (which recently backed Illuvium and Sentient Labs), Stake Capital Group, and IOBC. Notable angels include Sreeram Kannan of EigenLayer, Rok Kopp and Mike Silagadze of Ether.fi, and Paul Taylor, formerly of BlackRock.
What challenge does it address?
Currently, the existing security protocols are struggling to protect users from even bigger threats, specifically the threats posed by large companies, cyber attackers, and AI that manipulate our online experience and erode trust. Blockchain technologies, like smart contracts, are a real hope to restore trust in the internet. However, smart contracts can only use a small amount of computing, putting limits on what they can support.
To build great user experiences on a trustworthy Decentralised Web, we need a way to verify computations outside of blockchains and make unstoppable applications that, once released, cannot be tampered with.
Recently founded startup Layer aims to extend the functionality of Ethereum by making the first developer tools that support full-stack decentralised applications with Web Assembly.
What does Layer do?
Founded by Sam Cassatt, Jake Hartnell, and Ethan Frey are three of the most seasoned builders in the blockchain space, Layer utilises Web Assembly, which allows developers to write applications in languages like rust, that can run anywhere – even on your iPhone.
Layer’s upcoming product, the Layer SDK, will allow developers to build new layers on top of Ethereum that run full-stack blockchain-based applications consisting of smart contracts, consensus mechanisms, UI, and verifiable off-chain services, such as AI agents, ZK provers, serverless functions, decentralised messaging servers, and more.
The team believes tools like Layer SDK will be the key to mitigating these incredible threats and making the Decentralised Web the dominant web, compete with all the exciting products the founders have helped to pioneer in blockchain over the last 14 years.
“All three of us have realised that, while smart contracts have given us a foundational layer of trust, they aren’t enough to support a full decentralised version of the Internet,” Sam Cassatt, Co-Founder of Layer explains. “We wanted to complete the full narrative arc of decentralised architecture, and give the world the tools necessary to build any application, with any performance requirements in this trust-minimised way.”
Investors’ views
“We are thrilled to back Jake, Sam, and Ethan on their mission to build out the next generation of blockchain infrastructure.” said Wei Dai, Research Partner at 1kx, “Traditional smart contract platforms rely on replicated execution which limits scalability. Layer’s platform and SDK offer the best-in-class scalability, programmability, and configurability for shared-security applications.”
Richard Muirhead, Managing Partner, Fabric Ventures commented: “We at fabric have long been excited to back teams expanding the boundaries of what is possible in crypto and Lay3r are doing exactly that. By defining a new category of shared economic security that spans hybrid off-chain and on-chain worlds, we believe Lay3r can be a Schelling point for new teams looking to build applications taking advantage of these core primitives.”
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