Botanix Laboratoriesa New York-based Bitcoin development startup founded at Harvard, announced a major $11.5 million in funding in a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine.
This funding round, led by prominent investors including UTXO Management, Polychain Capital, Placeholder Capital, Valor Equity Partners, ABCDE, Andrew Kang, Dan Held, Dovey Wan, Eric Wall and others, will fuel the creation of Spiderchain. Spiderchain claims to be the first Bitcoin-native Layer 2 primitive with full EVM equivalence, designed to support a global financial system built on Bitcoin. This funding follows a previous fundraising round of $8.5 million in April.
“Our team at Botanix Labs is driven by the mission to build the infrastructure that will support a global financial system running on Bitcoin for the next 100 years,” said Willem Schroé, inventor of Spiderchain and co-founder of Botanix Labs. “The Spiderchain can expand the Bitcoin ecosystem to eight billion users and unlock billions of capital that has remained unused for years. We are proud to have the support of so many industry veterans who share our vision of reshaping the way the world thinks about building on Bitcoin.
Our team is also proud to be backed by a diverse group of prestigious angel investors who share our vision for the future of Bitcoin. pic.twitter.com/xqoaPcz6Bs
– Botanix Laboratories 🕷 (@BotanixLabs) May 7, 2024
Since its inception in 2022, Botanix Labs claims to be dedicated to developing technologies that strengthen a decentralized, Bitcoin-native financial infrastructure. The Spiderchain project, introduced via an early testnet in November 2023, has already generated considerable interest with over 200,000 active addresses and over 10,000 experimental token launches, according to the release.
Spiderchain's architecture is designed to seamlessly transition applications and smart contracts from Ethereum to Bitcoin, providing users with the ability to interact with the Bitcoin network without relying on wrapped assets. This protocol aims to improve scalability and also paves the way for efficient and secure financial interactions within the Bitcoin ecosystem.
“Bitcoin has proven to be the most secure monetary network in history,” said Armin Sabouri, CTO and co-founder of Botanix Labs. “Now is the time to put Bitcoin to good use by transforming it from a simple store of value into a global monetary network that strengthens individual sovereignty.”
For more information on Botanix Labs and Spiderchain, interested parties can visit their website here.
Bitcoin Magazine is wholly owned by BTC Inc., which operates UTXO management, a regulated capital allocator focused on the digital assets sector. UTXO invests in various Bitcoin businesses and holds significant stakes in digital assets.