Blockchain project Espresso Systems has successfully closed a $28 million Series B funding round, with a16z crypto leading the investment.
This latest financial boost brings the total funding to over $60 million, following a $30 million Series A round in 2022 and an initial $2 million in seed funding in 2020. The firm has opted not to disclose its current valuation.
Initiated in early Q4 2023, the negotiation round concluded early this year, with Espresso Systems in the process of securing additional investments from strategic partners.
The company is at the forefront of developing a novel marketplace for shared sequencing, aimed at enhancing interoperability among rollups and creating new opportunities for various blockchain stakeholders, including Layer 1 block proposers like Ethereum.
“Espresso’s marketplace democratizes participation, allowing both Layer 1 proposers and rollups to engage. It’s designed to ensure rollups can monetize their value creation while retaining independence,” explained CEO Ben Fisch.
The platform facilitates the auctioning of block-building rights among rollups, introducing a dynamic where anyone can bid for shared sequencing rights.
A shared sequencer in this context refers to a protocol or entity responsible for producing blocks across multiple rollups simultaneously.
Espresso’s innovative marketplace will allow rollups to set a default sequencer and establish minimum pricing for sequencing rights transfer, offering an alternative for rollups that prefer not to handle sequencing directly.
“The shift towards a marketplace model is pivotal for ensuring rollup autonomy and financial sustainability,” Fisch noted, emphasizing the project’s vision of creating a unified Ethereum chain experience through improved composability and a decentralized sequencing marketplace.
Espresso Systems is also enhancing its infrastructure with HotShot, a finality tool for swift block finalization, and Tiramisu, a data availability layer for independent rollups, ensuring rapid transaction confirmations and reducing risks for cross-chain liquidity providers.
With the upcoming release of its fifth testnet, Cappuccino, Espresso aims for further decentralization and improvement over its current system. This step is critical in paving the way for the Espresso marketplace’s launch, with a mainnet debut anticipated later in 2024.