Aleo, a privacy-focused blockchain, has secured $28 million in investments to carry its zero-knowledge functions to a wider market.California-based
Aleo, a privacy-focused blockchain, has secured $28 million in investments to carry its zero-knowledge functions to a wider market.
California-based enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz led the non-public funding spherical. Notable contributions additionally got here from Coinbase Ventures, Galaxy Digital, Variant Fund, Polychain Capital and the Joseph Lubin-led Ethereal Ventures, amongst others.
Described because the “first platform for totally non-public functions,” Aleo makes use of a cryptography method referred to as zero-knowledge proof, or ZKPs, to attain scalability, privateness and interoperability for off-chain transactions.
Maybe probably the most notable blockchain use case for ZKP is Zcash, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that rose to prominence for its particular iteration of ZKP often known as zk-SNARKs.
Katie Haun, basic accomplice at Andreessen Horowitz, stated “privacy-preserving functions enable customers to navigate digital interactions with out bias, which, coupled with blockchain expertise, will create new alternatives for worth creation,” including:
“Aleo’s tech has solved essential points in scaling functions constructed with zero-knowledge expertise, enabling any developer or group to construct and scale a very non-public software.”
Howard Wu, Aleo’s co-founder, stated “privateness will now not be merely a function however will turn out to be a core perform” of next-generation functions. Aleo’s platform is making an attempt to make zero-knowledge proofs programmable at each software degree. Which means functions constructed on the platform are non-public by default.
Andreessen Horowitz has turn out to be a prolific investor of blockchain firms, having solely just lately secured a stake in NFT market OpenSea and Optimism’s L2 scaling answer. In April 2020, the corporate raised $515 million for its new cryptocurrency fund, simply surpassing its preliminary objective.