Aligned Layer Raises $20 Million in Series A Funding

According to Foresight News, Aligned Layer, a company that recently completed a $2.6 million seed round in April, has secured $20 million in Series A funding in less than two months. The speed of this funding round is quite rare. The seed round was led by Lemniscap, with participation from StarkWare and O(1)Labs, while the Series A round was led by Hack VC, with participation from dao5.

Aligned Layer, which is attracting significant venture capital interest, is built on EigenLayer and serves as a verification and aggregation layer. It uses the security of Ethereum validators to economically and efficiently verify any SNARK proof. Aligned Layer can have more applications outside of Ethereum and can help other chains verify data. It was developed by Yet Another Company, an Ethereum infrastructure startup that raised $1 million in funding in January.

Aligned Layer operates by receiving proofs from different proof systems and verifying them. These proofs can be generated using different proof systems, each with different proof sizes, verification times, and verification logic. However, all proofs have one thing in common: they can be verified quickly.

Aligned Layer has dedicated validators that can check the validity of each validator and publish the results to Ethereum. The proofs are stored in a data availability layer, which provides an economically efficient storage strategy. Operators in Aligned Layer obtain proof data from this layer.

Ethereum receives verification results from Aligned Layer. However, Ethereum itself cannot verify proofs due to high costs. Instead, a general Rust prover generates verification proofs for all proofs included within a given time period.

Aligned Layer's potential applications include various categories such as Rollups and application chain soft finality, fast bridging, SNARK-based P2P protocols like payment systems and social networks, public chains interoperable with Ethereum, machine learning, ZK oracles, identity verification protocols, on-chain games, and more.

Currently, Aligned Layer supports Cairo STARK's Platinum Prover, gnark's Plonk, Mina's Kimchi, SuccintLabs' SP1, and a16z's Jolt. Verification costs depend on the type and size of the proof.

In March, Aligned Layer launched a simple testnet based on the Cosmos SDK and will migrate to the EigenLayer testnet.