Solayer Labs, a startup behind the Solana-based restaking protocol Solayer, has raised $12 million in a funding round led by Polychain Capital and HackVC.
The fundraising also involved participation from Binance Labs, Big Brain Holdings, Hack VC, Nomad Capital, Race Capital, ABCDE and Arthur Haye’s family office Maelstrom.
Restaking is where staked tokens, used to secure proof-of-stake blockchains, are used to secure additional applications, effectively reusing the staked tokens. These additional applications are sometimes called actively validated services (AVSs).
The concept of restaking was pioneered by EigenLayer, an Ethereum-based restaking protocol that is currently the second-largest DeFi protocol by total value locked (TVL). At the time of writing, $11.8 billion.
Solayer says it intends to apply EigenLayer’s approach to “shared economic security,” but in a way that is specifically tailored to the Solana ecosystem.
Solayer Labs was only incorporated as a company in February 2024, and its flagship product launched on the Solana mainnet in May 2024.
Its network currently has $190 million in TVL with 100 unique deposit addresses, as per DeFi Llama.
The start-up says the latest fundraising will be used to further build its restaking network on Solana, as well as enhance scalability and security across the ecosystem.
Solayer also said it will look to combat the “spam and congestion” in the Solana ecosystem as network traffic has grown since 2023.
The restaking start-up also said that it will soon release “endogenous AVS clients”, general asset restaking, and “exogenous AVS” in the coming months following the fundraising.
Endogenous generally means coming from inside, such as endogenous illness, with exogenuous meaning coming from outside.
“We committed to delivering the infrastructure that benefits the overall security and efficiency of the Solana L1, maximizing value for every user, developer, and meme enjoyers here,” said a Solayer spokesperson.
The news comes as restaking is becoming a more prominent feature in the crypto world.
According to a report by Galaxy Digital, there was $20.14 billion worth of crypto assets being restaked as of June 2024, a huge increase since late December 2023.
Of this, $58.5 million is restaked on Solana, though the vast majority of restaked funds are on the Ethereum blockchain.
Other restaking solutions that have gained a measure of popularity according to the report include Karak, Symbiotic, Picasso, and Pell Network.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
Editor's note: This story was updated after publication to correct an error in the headline, which named Polygon instead of Polychain.