Venture Capital • March 10, 2022, 5:37AM EST
UPDATED: May 4, 2022, 2:26PM EDT

Ethereum Layer 2 developer StarkWare is raising funds at a $6 billion valuation: report

Read the non-AMP story on Theblock.co
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StarkWare, an Ethereum Layer 2 developer that uses ZK-rollup technology for scaling, is reportedly raising funds at a $6 billion valuation.

Israeli newspaper Calcalist reported the news on Thursday, saying that StarkWare is raising at least $100 million, without citing a source. The newspaper didn't give any details on who might be investing. 

The new funding round, which is yet to close, comes barely three months after StarkWare raised $50 million in a Series C round at a $2 billion valuation.

“Things move so fast here, so while I’d normally dismiss talk of tripling the valuation after three or four months, it’s quite possible," a company insider, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Block. "I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but there’s a sense that something is cooking. The team is definitely on a high, feeling that its products are less viewed as possible fixes for blockchain scaling, and more as the ones that are going to win out.”

The company's Series C round was led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Paradigm, Three Arrows Capital, Alameda Research and others. At the time, StarkWare co-founder and CEO Uri Kolodny told The Block that the company would raise more money in the near future if opportunities arose.

Founded in 2017, Israel-based StarkWare provides two Ethereum scaling products: StarkEx and StarkNet. The former is a permissioned tailor-made Ethereum scaling engine, while the latter is a permissionless decentralized ZK-rollup network that was recently fully launched. StarkNet allows any developer to build decentralized applications on the network, like on Ethereum. Such scaling networks aim to reduce gas fees.

News of StarkWare's latest raise comes as the crypto funding spree continues at a rapid pace and valuations are soaring. As The Block reported recently, the first two months of this year have seen record funding for startups in the space.

Find a full profile of StarkWare from The Block Research here.