- The $45 million Series A round was completed in the fourth quarter of last year via a token sale
- The hybrid computing platform aims to resolve the ignored scalability aspect of Ethereum – its computational limitations
Ethereum overlay solution Boba Network has announced that it completed a $45 million Series A raise during Q4 of 2021. With a valuation of $1.5 billion, Boba has joined the ranks of unicorns within this nascent space.
Without a lead investor, the hybrid computing platform enjoyed broad participation, with investors ranging from industry-native venture funds to celebrity figures. Infinite Capital, Crypto.com, Kinetic Capital, Huobi, Hack VC, BitMart, Will Smith, Keisuke Honda, and Paris Hilton were all involved.
The network said that funding for the Series was secured via a token sale, whose specifics remained undisclosed. At the time of the raise, market conditions were more bullish for the BOBA token, meaning the investors must have couped them at a higher than the current market price – $1.75.
Built on optimistic rollup technology, Boba Network was grown on the codebase of Optimism (another Ethereum l2) but offers specific differences, including a community fraud detector and additional cross-chain messaging.
The layer two solution launched its BOBA governance token last September. Aiming to evolve as a decentralised autonomous network (DAO), it intends to use part of the funding to nurture greater functionality for dApps.
Reducing Ethereum’s computational complexity
Boba Network’s CEO Alan Chiu also noted an existing gap in addressing Ethereum’s computational limitations, making it an area of interest with the new cash in hand. Chiu explained that while scalability was sought via reduced fees and faster speeds, the aspect of the mainnet’s computational constraints was left unattended.
“Everyone else was focused on making Ethereum faster and cheaper, which of course, is necessary, but there’s an additional dimension of scalability that’s been neglected — computational complexity,” said Chiu.
The Boba CEO explained that the network aims to empower Ethereum to handle complex machine learning algorithms via its Hybrid Compute protocol. Chiu added that the protocol powers off-chain machine learning, enabling developers to use complex algorithms that are unsuitable for the on-chain environment.
“Smart contracts on Boba can call any external API, so suddenly you can do machine learning off-chain and have the results…