Lumoz (formerly Opside), a blockchain scaling infrastructure project that helps developers launch zk-rollups, has raised a pre-Series A funding round at a valuation of $120 million.
Investors in this round included OKX Ventures, HashKey Capital, KuCoin Ventures, Comma3 Ventures, Kronos Ventures, Kernel Ventures and Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, Lumoz said Monday. The funding amounted to $6 million, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told The Block. A HashKey Capital spokesperson confirmed the company’s participation in this round.
Co-founder Jeffrey Yang told The Block that Lumoz began raising money for the round in February of this year and closed it in March. Yang added that this consisted of a simple contract for future tokens (SAFT) round and that $120 million was the fully diluted token value.
Lumoz’s pre-Series A round comes a year after it raised $4 million in an April 2023 seed funding round then known as Opside. Yang said the rebranding to Lumoz took place last October. This is because the project was misunderstood to be doing optimistic rollups when it supported building zk-rollups.
What is Lumoz?
Founded in March 2022, Hong Kong-based Lumoz is a comprehensive blockchain scaling infrastructure provider. Specifically, it is a zk-Rollup-as-a-Service (ZK-RaaS) platform that enables developers to initiate their application-specific zk rollups with “one click.”
“We help others build zk-rollups and also provide a basic modular compute layer,” Yang said. “There are significant compute costs associated with zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) computations for ZK rollups, which often exceed data availability (DA) costs, and Lumoz’s modular compute layer helps bridge this gap by providing modular compute support. We aim for it.”
Yang said layer 2 projects ZKFair and Merlin Chain are already leveraging Lumoz’s ZK-RaaS platform. Because Merlin Chain is a Bitcoin layer 2 project, Lumoz can support any layer 1 blockchain for scaling, not just Ethereum, Yang said.
According to Yang, AltLayer can be seen as one of Lumoz’s closest competitors. RaaS platforms AltLayer and Lumoz help developers build application-specific rollups using a modular technology stack. On the other hand, existing rollup projects such as Arbitrum, Optimism, and ZKSync can be viewed as general-purpose rollups.
Lumoz said its platform is compatible with most zk rollup types, including Polygon CDK, zkSync, Scroll and StarkNet.
Lumoz’s plans and token launch schedule
With the new capital in hand, Lumoz plans to expand its current team of more than 30 people by hiring for engineering and business development functions, Yang said. Lumoz also plans to launch the mainnet of its compute layer in July, Yang added.
Last month Lumoz launched a points program. Representative Yang added that all points can be converted to tokens in the future, and that the conversion rate has not yet been determined. A token generation event is scheduled for August, he said.
Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet delivering news, research and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor in The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the cryptocurrency space. Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget is an anchor LP of Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to provide objective, impactful and timely information about the cryptocurrency industry. Below are our current financial disclosures.
© 2023 The Block. All rights reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not provided or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial or other advice.