Axelar, a blockchain interoperability protocol co-developed by Algorand founders Sergey Gorbunov Georgios Vlachos, has secured $25 million in a Series A funding round led by Polychain Capital.
This latest funding round for Axelar brings the protocol’s total funding to some $29 million with prior funding raised in seed funding ($3.75 million). Seed funding for the protocol’s development was received from ventura capital firms DCVC, AngelList CEO and founder Naval Ravikant, as well as from Binance X, the crypto exchange’s smart chain accelerator arm.
“We’re currently in a testnet mode where ecosystems partners are learning how to setup nodes on the network, send transactions, and they help us to build monitoring tools, dashboards, and wallets integrations,” shares Gorbunov.
Resources gained from the funding round will be used to scale the Axelar development team, with further blockchain integrations in the firm’s pipeline. The decentralized protocol is working on blockchain technology that can connect users across multiple blockchains.
“We’ll continue iterating through the testnet deployments adding more features and integrations until the network is robust and ready to launch,” the core developer added.
Participants in the funding round include Dragonfly Capital, Galaxy Digital, North Island Ventures, Robot Ventures, Lemniscap, SCB 10X, and Divergence Ventures, among others. Angel investors such as Terra co-founder Do Kwon and Catalyst Sports & Media CEO Happy Walters have also pitched in on the Series A. Details of how the funding was secured remain undisclosed, however, as the Series A was held in private.
At the moment, Axelar has a team of 15 blockchain engineers and developers, and is looking to expand its team by hiring both technical and non-technical roles like community management, communications, and business development.
Axelar’s blockchain protocol is now live on its testnet phase. Developers familiar with building applications on top of blockchains like Polkadot, Terra, and Avalanche are already working on integrations with Axelar to enable other protocols and projects to leverage cross-chain liquidity across the crypto and blockchain industry.
The Axelar protocol features Byzantine consensus, cryptography, and on-chain incentives designed for security and reliability for cross-chain requests. According to its website, Axelar has not yet disclosed or specified any plans for its mainnet launch.
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