Scaling Ethereum without Compromise

We’re excited to announce our Series B fundraise led by a16z crypto.

In 2021, we saw the first layer-2 rollups launch on Ethereum, focusing on scaling transaction throughput without sacrificing sovereignty, security, and decentralization. These systems have grown substantially in usage, even overtaking the Ethereum base layer in some key metrics. As this trend continues, our mission is to ensure that the growing number of rollups can continue to unlock new use cases without needing to give up decentralization, composability, and credible neutrality.

Announcing our Series B funding round

To accelerate this mission, we have raised $28 million in our Series B funding round. We’re excited that a16z crypto has led the round, joined by Polygon, Taiko, o1Labs, StarkWare, Offchain Labs, and core contributors and strategic investors from over 30 notable ecosystem projects — spanning rollups, L2 infrastructure, interoperability, and more. We are excited to work closely with these innovative partners, who are equally motivated to ensure that layer-2 protocols remain decentralized and interoperable.

This additional funding will help us continue product development, meaningfully invest in the broader rollup ecosystem, and set the stage for the community to ultimately operate and govern Espresso as a fully decentralized, credibly neutral public good for all L2s, from based rollups to validiums. We’ll be hiring aggressively to build out our team and expand our efforts. If you are a builder wanting to support the dream of a united Ethereum, please get in touch with us.

A marketplace for shared sequencing for all L2s

Espresso is more than just a shared sequencer, consensus protocol, or tool to facilitate interoperability between rollups — Espresso is a marketplace for shared sequencing, where rollups can sell the right to build their blocks to proposers who bid for these rights. Proposers can also bid on multiple rollup blocks to become shared proposers for multiple chains at once, which allows them to facilitate cross-chain activity. Anyone can participate in this marketplace, including L1 proposers and rollup DAO-appointed sequencers. Rollups that don’t want to worry about sequencing can also simply rely on Espresso to handle it for them.

Espresso’s HotShot finality gadget also offers lightning-fast finality on proposed blocks, ensuring that rollups don’t need to compromise on the experiences that their users are accustomed to. This finality is economically backed by both Espresso stakeholders and Ethereum restakers, potentially scaling to the entire Ethereum validator set, and provides assurances to users that their transactions will be finalized on the L1. Overall, we are building Espresso to be a one-stop solution for rollups to increase utility for their users through improved safety, liveness, and interoperability, while being compensated for the value they create and maintaining their sovereignty and autonomy.

This is an exhilarating time to build and innovate on Ethereum. We remain committed to Ethereum’s rollup-centric roadmap, and are more enthusiastic than ever about its ability to bring real users on-chain. We’re so grateful for the support we’ve received from our investors, partners, and the broader community. Onwards!