Avail Raises $43M in Series A for Web3 Unification

Modular blockchain platform Avail has successfully raised $75 million in various investment rounds, as venture capitalists acknowledge the necessity of solving data availability issues plaguing blockchains. On June 4, Avail concluded a heavily oversubscribed Series A funding round with $43 million, which builds onto the $32 million accumulated from prior pre-seed and seed rounds. Anurag Arjun, one of Avail’s co-founders, intends to use these funds to further develop their permissionless unification layer for the Web3 ecosystem. “This new funding empowers us to accelerate our development, expand our global footprint, and tackle the most pressing challenges confronting Web3 today,” said Arjun.

Arjun, who also co-founded Polygon, aims to address three significant issues facing the Web3 ecosystem: blockchain fragmentation, data availability deficiencies, and limited scalability. In an interview, Arjun elaborated on how Avail’s data availability (DA) technology tackles the issue by shifting data off-chain and verifying its availability. The process leverages advanced methods such as validity proofs, erasure coding, light clients, and data availability sampling (DAS). Unlike traditional monolithic blockchain designs that restrict block space as demand grows, Avail’s DA layer can scale block space in line with demand, thereby ensuring the future-proofing of appchains and rollups.

The recent Series A funding round attracted participation from prominent venture capital firms and angel investors, including names like Altos Ventures, Alliance DAO, Hashkey, Elixir Capital, Spark Digital Capital, and RW3 Ventures. Avail aims to use its blockchain unification initiatives to encourage partnerships and collaborations within the Web3 community. By leveraging Avail’s ability to create new rollups instead of building separate layer 1 blockchains, developers can build and scale contemporary blockchain applications more efficiently.

Arjun elaborated that the increasing number of layer-1 and layer-2 blockchains could fragment the space and create user confusion. He believes the vision of unifying these layers under Avail’s framework is highly appealing to venture capitalists. Rollups generated through Avail’s DA layer inherit their security from Avail’s base layer, a plan that involves enhancing security measures by supporting the restaking of multiple cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ether.

Joey Krug, a partner at Founders Fund, which participated in the funding round, emphasized the simplicity of creating new protocols using Avail’s technology stack. “Avail addresses the historically expensive problem of data availability for blockchains, making it both cheaper and more efficient with their custom-built approach,” Krug noted.

The future roadmap for Avail includes the development of Avail Nexus, a unification layer built on their DA technology aimed at enhancing cross-rollup operability. Another key component in their plan is Fusion Security, designed to ensure unified and shared security throughout the Avail ecosystem.

The broader aim of Avail’s technology is to reduce the complexities associated with fragmented blockchain systems. By providing a scalable and secure solution for data availability, Avail seeks to foster a more unified Web3 landscape. This could help prevent the occurrence of fragmentation and simplify the user experience within the blockchain space.

As Avail continues to grow, it’s positioning itself as a major player in the Web3 sector, tackling scalability, data availability, and security challenges head-on. By doing so, Avail aims to create a more cohesive and robust environment for developers and users alike, ensuring that the Web3 ecosystem can continue to evolve efficiently.