Bain Capital Crypto leads Orb Labs' $4.5 million raise

Cross-chain tooling and protocol developer Orb Labs has closed a $4.5 million seed round led by Bain Capital Crypto.

Other investors in the round include Shima Capital, 6th Man Ventures, Modular Capital and SevenX Ventures, said the company in a release.

Founded in 2022, Orb Labs is blockchain interoperability startup, which develops tooling and protocols that enable blockchains to communicate with one and other. It has built two products Earlybird, a cross-chain messaging protocol, and MagicLane, an omnichain token and messaging platform built on top of Earlybird. Both products will be released in the coming months.

“There currently exist a number of challenges facing cross-chain developers, and our goal is to provide the tools and resources so that developers can focus their energy on creating incredible applications that generate value for both themselves and their customers,” said Felix Madutsa, co-founder of Orb Labs, in the release.

Many developers still struggle to find messaging protocols that "push the limits of both usability and security," said Richard Adjei, co-founder of Orb Labs. The startup is hoping to solve this problem with fast, gas-efficient messaging protocols, he said.

The funds from the recent raise will be used to expand the team, accelerate product development and perform security audits ahead of the launch, the company said.

"We are thrilled to partner Orb Labs on their mission to enable a multi-chain future that is cheaper, more secure, and significantly more gas and capital efficient" said Carl Vogel, partner and head of research at 6th Man ventures. “Crypto needs cross-chain infrastructure that can support mass market adoption, and we believe Richard and Felix possess the right engineering experience, ingenuity and perseverance to unlock 10x+ improvements in scalability and interoperability.”