The primary developer of Avalanche blockchain, Ava Labs is in the process of raising $350 million in the latest funding round that would put its valuation at $5.25 billion, according to a Bloomberg report on Thursday.
Though officially not confirmed, the new valuation of the company would make it one of the most-valued cryptocurrency startups.
Ethereum Killer
Headquartered in New York, Ava Labs was established in 2018. But, the blockchain Avalanche was launched in 2020 when the company touted it as the 'Ethereum killer'. Indeed, the blockchain brings several benefits in terms of speed and scalability compared to smart contracts leader Ethereum.
However, Avalanche is far behind Ethereum in terms of adoption. According to DappRadar, almost 250 active apps are running on Avalanche, most of which are decentralized finance (DeFi) and gaming applications. But, this number is growing rapidly.
The popularity of the project and expectations from it can also be evaluated by the upward rally of the Avalanche token (AVAX) price. It jumped by around 19 percent in the past month and is now holding a total market capitalization of $21.5 billion.
Ava Labs, which was founded and headed by Cornell University Professor Emin Gun Sirer, attracted the interest of venture capital firms in its early days. The company closed a $6 million funding round in 2019 from investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain. It again raised $12 million in the following year through a private token sale led by Bitmain, Galaxy Digital and a few others.
Meanwhile, the Avalanche public blockchain ecosystem under the Avalanche Foundation received an injection of $230 million via a token sale led by Polychain Capital and Three Arrows Capital last year.
Other cryptocurrency projects are receiving massive valuations. Blockchain project Polygon was valued at $20 billion after a recent funding round, whereas stablecoin issuer Circle also received a valuation of $9 billion.
