Cross-chain bridge platform Across has secured $41 million in a strategic token sale that attracted the participation of top venture capital firms in the crypto industry.
The funding is part of Across Protocol’s effort to unify Ethereum (ETH) via a cross-chain, intent powered interoperability. Across shared this via an announcement on March 4
Why does this matter?
web3 growth has seen top Ethereum layer 2 scaling solutions offer significant improvements in scalability and reduction of transaction costs. However, there is the effect of fragmented liquidity and the barrier of user experience amid disconnected chains.
Intents is the new infrastructural push that targets a unified chain experience for users. The Ethereum Foundation recently unveiled plans for intents adoption and Across’ goal is to bring this to users.
Funding provides for capital injection that will help put this into action.
“Our goal from inception is to accelerate the transition to seamless crosschain experiences when users move between two chains. Our north star has always been two-second-bridging, no matter how many chains are involved. This latest raise further empowers us to achieve that vision,” the Across Protocol team noted in a blog post.
Paradigm, Coibase Ventures back $41m raise
Venture capital firm Paradigm led the new funding round, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Bain Capital Crypto and Multicoin Capital. Across also received investment support from angel investor Sina Habinian.
To advance this goal, Across will use the new funding to accelerate development of its core bridging infrastructure, add to current integrations and fund technical advancements in cross-chain intent execution.
Across sees these developments as critical to the future of web3 adoption.
Users should be able to benefit from a seamless on-chain experience, not restricted by the capabilities of the chain they are on at any one time. This interoperability breakthrough means a user can trade on Arbitrum, stake on another chain like Optimism and find the hottest token deal on Base – all this with a unified chain experience.
Across Protocol currently integrates with Hyperliquid, Kraken’s Ink, Sony’s Soneium and more than 40 decentralized applications. The protocol also recently launched on Unichain, a decentralized L2 powered by Uniswap.
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