Polychain Leads $15M Funding Round for Crypto Startup Polyhedra Network

Polyhedra Network, a startup that provides Web3 infrastructure backed by zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs, has raised $15 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Polychain Capital, according to press materials shared exclusively with CoinDesk.

The fundraise comes a little over a month after the startup closed a $10 million strategic funding round from Binance Labs and Polychain. Getting two deals done so quickly stands out amid the crypto bear market that has nearly stalled investments in the industry.

Berkeley, California-based Polyhedra Network is building a suite of systems focusing on blockchain interoperability, scalability and privacy. Those systems include zkBridge, which facilitates cross-chain asset and data transfers.

"ZkBridge uses zero-knowledge proof constructions to verify the validity of the consensus between two blockchains," Polyhedra co-founder James Zhang said in a statement. "With zero-knowledge proofs, zkBridge offers strong security without relying on external assumptions and a significant reduction in on-chain verification cost."

ZkBridge had been in testnet for the past six months, but the company announced a successful mainnet alpha launch on Tuesday, making the system available to users on a number of layer 1 and layer 2 blockchains.

Other backers in the round included ABCDE, Sparkle Ventures, HashKey Capital, Foresight Ventures, Kucoin Ventures, NGC Ventures and Arcane Group.

In the coming months, Polyhedra Network plans to integrate zkBridge into additional blockchain networks and launch application programming interfaces (API) and software development kits (SDK) to help developers build and collaborate.

Read more: Zero-Knowledge Cryptography in 2023: The Year Privacy Becomes Practical