Interlay Expansion: Bring Trustless InterBTC to All Blockchains, $3M seed round led by IOSG Ventures

LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / July 14, 2021 / Interlay, an interoperability startup focused on investing, earning, and paying with BTC on any blockchain, today announced its $3.04 million seed capital raise. The seed funding round was led by IOSG Ventures and co-investors such as Blockchain.com, Launchub Ventures, CMS Holdings, KR1, Hypersphere, Zeeprime and Angels (CEO of Blockchain.com and ex-Head of Bitmain) as other key participants. This fundraising should accelerate the company’s growth to other blockchains beyond Polkadot, put the company on the path of team expansion, and meet strong demand for the development of v2 of the bridge technology powering interBTC.

“We are very pleased to have the support of top investors from different ecosystems and geographies who believe in our mission to bring Bitcoin to all major blockchains such as Polkadot, Ethereum and Cosmos,” said Alexei Zamyatin, Founder and CEO of Interlay. “Together we will accelerate the development and adoption of interBTC, Interlay’s flagship product, enabling people to invest, earn and pay with BTC on any blockchain in a truly trustless and decentralized way.”

After several years of academic research on Bitcoin interoperability, Alexei Zamyatin and Dominik Harz, the first two Ph.D. students at Imperial College’s cryptocurrency laboratory and co-founders of Interlay, developed XCLAIM, the first trusted protocol for cross-chain wrapped assets.

Development started with Polkadot – selected as the most promising multi-chain project that envisaged a truly decentralized bridge to BTC. In 2020, Interlay built the parachain interBTC (formerly PolkaBTC), supported by grants from the Web3 Foundation and in collaboration with Parity Technologies. interBTC solves challenges related to capital efficiency and decentralization that other packaged Bitcoin attempts had failed:

• integration of staking derivatives for capital efficiency,
• Trustless, multi-collateral stake delegation for more decentralization,
• MakerDAO-style multi-collateral equalization for pen stability,
• On-chain ECDSA key derivation for better vault security…

The result – interBTC is resilient to price fluctuations; Vaults earn competitive APY, and anyone can become a Vault at any time.

“A robust and decentralized infrastructure is a key enabler for a vibrant multi-chain ecosystem. We are very pleased to be working with this outstanding team that combines scientific rigor and entrepreneurial spirit,” said Xinshu Dong, Partner at IOSG Ventures. “Securing and efficiently connecting Polkadot and Bitcoin is the first strategic step for Interlay, and we look forward to many solutions and applications to be unlocked by the potential of Interlay’s technology.”

seed round

After 1.5 years of funding revenue and growing from 2 to 12 people, Interlay closed a $3.04M seed funding round to accelerate growth and expansion to other blockchains outside of Polkadot . Interlay wants to grow to 17 employees by 2022.

Investors include:

Interchain Grant: To the Cosmos and Beyond

In line with its expansion, Interlay received a grant from the Interchain Foundation to bring InterBTC into the Cosmos ecosystem.

As a first step, Interlay will deliver a technical feasibility report on the integration of interBTC into Cosmos’ IBC protocol and provide a proof of concept for the implementation. More specifically, Interlay will use the ibc-rs module and IBC substrate library to move interBTC from its Polkadot parachain to any blockchain that supports Cosmos’ IBC cross-chain interface.

interBTC: expansion and rebranding

interBTC is a 1:1 bitcoin-backed asset that allows users to invest, earn and pay with BTC on any blockchain – the true DeFi way:

• radically open: Anyone can help secure the system;
• Covered by insurance: Users can return to Bitcoin at any time, or they will be fully refunded.

interBTC is backed by top-notch research (XCLAIM protocol) and requires no reliance on any third party. BTC backing interBTC is kept locked by a decentralized network of secured vaults and each user can (i) mint interBTC by locking BTC and (ii) run their own vault.

Consequently, users only need to trust that the blockchains involved (Bitcoin, Polkadot, Ethereum, etc.) are working securely.

Connecting Polkadot and Bitcoin is strategic for the Polkadot ecosystem, but it is only the first step for Interlay as we are confident that Interlay will eventually become synonymous with cross-chain communication.

AAbout interlay

Interlay envisions a future where blockchains connect and interact seamlessly. Where anyone can use any digital currency on any blockchain with no restrictions and earn from their wealth. Our mission is to make the free nature of BTC and decentralized finance a reality. We work with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot and others. Our flagship product is InterBTC. Anyone on any blockchain can invest and earn. No central services. Radically open and assured. Founded by former Imperial College CS PhD students, our products are backed by world-class academic work. We work with leading research laboratories and technology companies around the world.

Contact & press kit:

For more information, visit www.interlay.io

For media inquiries [email protected]

Press kit: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1cxAJy7B7saKfTi7cSH10BDop9KpCQghg

Director – Judy Yang, [email protected]

Links:

website
LinkedIn
Twitter

SOURCE: IOSG ventures

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