Israel appears to be becoming a major power in the field of cryptocurrencies and blockchain. After Fireblocks raised $ 550 million at a $ 8 billion valuation earlier this year, Calcalist learned that another local blockchain company was shutting down at a high valuation. StarkWare, a developer of blockchain technology solutions, is raising a new funding round with a $ 6 billion valuation. The round isn’t over yet and could be at least $ 100 million.
The Netania-based company raised $ 50 million in a $ 2 billion valuation last November. This means that your rating will triple in a few months. StarkWare raised $ 75 million in Series B a year ago and was valued at just a few hundred million dollars at the time. The company’s shareholders include Amnon Shashua, Technion, Coinbase, Intel Capital and Altshuller Shaham. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has also invested in the company. Series C was led by Sequoia Capital and included Founders Fund, Paradigm, Three Arrows and Alameda Research. It is still unclear who will participate in the company’s new round.
Founded in 2018 by Uri Kolodny (CEO), Eli Ben-Sasson (President), Michael Riabzev (Chief Architect) and Alessandro Chiesa (Chief Scientist), StarkWare uses zero-knowledge proof to create blockchain-specific issues. We aim to solve the problem. This has established a new high efficiency method for blockchain-based computations. It is used on some of the major platforms and applications around the world. They include dYdX, Sorare, and ImmutableX.
Until now, StarkWare technology was only available to clients via the scaling engine StarkEx. But behind the scenes of Series C, the company plans to fully deploy the StarkNet platform. This will allow anyone to build blockchain apps using StarkWare technology. The company currently employs only 70 people.
A source from the company, who spoke on an anonymous basis, said: No one would be surprised if there was another big rating.
“It’s surreal. It looks like another Israeli tech office here, but in the crypto world, it’s seen as a person who is making a big difference. This person or such a fund wants to invest. There are always rumors that the company has rejected many offers because it doesn’t need money, but it could work if a really attractive deal comes true. “
..
