SMAPE Capital participates in US$15M seed round of modular blockchain developer Lava Network

Lava — build whatever you want, wherever you want

Modular blockchains are the next step of evolution of Web3 infrastructure championed by notable base-layers such as Celestia, Optimism, Starknet, Arbitrum, and others. These solve certain parts of the blockchain trilemma by allowing modular stacks. Those stacks separate execution, settlement, consensus, data availability layers allowing for best performance on each individual layer. RPC is another very critical layer in the modular stack. However, RPC service is fragmented with no provider serving every chain, and huge variance across service offerings and quality. This creates bottlenecks in RPC systems and affects both user and developer experience, which is critical to unlock innovation. Lava is a universal access layer for web3 — it is a permissionless Amazon for blockchain data. It is a modular data network for scalable access to any blockchain.

Lava serves a powerful solution for node operators (data providers), developers (data consumers), and validators.

(Image source: https://www.lavanet.xyz/blog/introducing-magma-points)

Building an application in Web3 becomes much easier with Lava, unleashing further innovation in the space that is reliant on data access providers. Lava abstracts away multi-chain data infrastructure by aggregating all providers into one platform. It is permissionless and modular so the network can quickly support access to any new rollup that launches in the future. It can also support any API developers want to use on that rollup.

Progressing towards its vision to be the access layer for all blockchains, Lava has recently announced its Magma points earning program. Initially wallet users on NEAR, Ethereum, Starknet, Evmos and Axelar will earn points by connecting to blockchains through Lava and using their wallets as normal. Lava Mainnet is expected to launch in 2024.

Investment thesis fit

Lava falls into the category of infrastructure vertical of SMAPE Capital’s investment thesis, developing core infrastructure of the modular multi-chain world that enables further innovation.

Astrid (founder & CIO SMAPE Capital) on Lava ‘As crypto-native fund that believes in a multi-chain future, we are particularly excited to support such an incredibly experienced and gifted team in building an important infrastructure of the modular Web3 world. We expect to see an explosion of innovation around Lava.’

Alex (founder & COO SMAPE Capital) ‘Lava really leads the way to true interoperability by providing access to all chains in one place. How they built their modular data network in a scalable and easy to integrate way really stands out!’

SMAPE Capital invested alongside the leads Tribe Capital, Jump Trading Group and HashKey Capital. Other investors include Alliance, Node Capital, North Island Ventures, Quiet Capital, Finality Capital Partners, AlphaLab Capital Group, Dispersion Capital, Interop Ventures, Protocol Labs, Chorus One, COTI Group, NetZero Capital, FunFair Technologies, MH Ventures, and GSR.

SMAPE is a team of seasoned investors and industry thought-leaders investing in internet-native ecosystems that are built by value-driven founders, obsessively solving fundamental problems by shaping the future of doing business. If you want to learn more about us, reach out to us — welcome@smape.capital