Union, the cross-chain, zero-knowledge (ZK) settlement layer, has successfully raised $12 million in Series A funding, led by Gumi Cryptos Capital and Longhash Ventures, bringing its total raised capital to $16m. The raise also saw participation from Borderless Capital in addition to other VCs and was backed by founders of Polygon, Movement and Berachain, among others. The raise will enable Union to continue powering the secure, trustless, and permissionless transfer of assets across Web3.
Karel Kubat, Founder of Union, commented: “I couldn’t be more excited about this news; it calls for a big thank you to Union’s partners, supporters, and users. This raise, which came just under a year after closing our Seed round, is reflective of our team’s ongoing dedication to reducing fragmentation by bringing secure, sovereign, and seamless interoperability to Web3. Union, like its connections, is unstoppable.”
As modular tech stacks and the vision for a multichain future continue to spread throughout the industry, Union stands in a prime position to realize this for Web3. Beyond bringing much-needed security to the blockchain bridging landscape by removing the need for third parties such as Multi-Sigs or MPCs, Union achieves greater speed and decentralization, and empowers users to generate their own proofs. In doing so, Union gives projects and users sovereignty, unlocking true freedom in the new age of finance.
Miko Matsumura, Managing Partner at Gumi Cryptos Capital, commented: “The freedom and incentives to fork creates a dizzying array of choices and an abundance of capabilities– but also a world of fragmentation and chaotic user experiences. Union has a world-changing combination of deep technical expertise, burning passion, hard pragmatism and partner-centricity to solve this exceedingly hard and universal problem.”
Built leveraging ZK proofs, Union powers secure, efficient, and trustless message passing, asset transfers, and cross-chain NFTs, which it is tackling through its partnership with NFT platform Stargaze. Union’s flagship product, the Ethereum to IBC bridge, unlocks smooth liquidity and user flow between Cosmos and all other ecosystems Union is integrated with, including Polygon, Berachain, Arbitrum, and Movement Labs. Union is also making headway in the Bitcoin ecosystem, addressing the chain’s scripting limitations to enable secure asset transfers across Bitcoin L2s and the multichain ecosystem, enhancing DeFi on Bitcoin.
Emma Cui, Managing Partner and CEO at LongHash Ventures commented: “We believe the future is inevitably multi-chain, and Union will play a pivotal role in bringing composability and abstraction to thousands of general-purpose and specialized blockchains. By leveraging ZK proofs, BLS signature, and light clients for consensus verification, Union provides the most secure and efficient layer for general message passing, asset transfers, and rollup settlement. We’ve been deeply impressed by the motivation of the Union team and it’s inspiring to see them actively engage the web3 community through their ZK trusted ceremony, open-source their code, and collaborate closely with partners.”
Union’s Series A fundraise follows its $4M seed fundraise announced last year, led by Galileo fund by Anagram, and a series of notable integrations. To learn more about Union, visit union.build and read about this year’s milestones on Union’s blog. Stay up to date on Union’s upcoming milestones, such as mainnet launch, by following Union on X or joining the Discord.