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Layer 2 blockchain LightLink announced it has raised $6.2 million in funding in an extended seed round.
LightLink extended its seed round investment due to high demand from institutional and individual investors and will leverage the additional $1.7 million to seamlessly integrate millions into the digital economy through user-focused, gasless dApps and enterprise partnerships.
The Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain lets decentralized apps (dApps) and enterprises offer users instant, gasless transactions. MH Ventures and NxGen were part of the round, with several high-profile individual crypto investors also participating.
The funding will primarily be used to integrate millions into the digital economy through user-focused, gasless dApps and enterprise partnerships. The capital will also be allocated toward LightLink’s ecosystem growth initiative and will be used to provide critical enhancements to its proprietary tech stack.
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“Our mission at LightLink is to make blockchain practical and accessible”, said Roy Hui, cofounder and CEO of LightLink, in a statement. “The investment will help us continue to build a Web3 ecosystem for millions of users from our enterprise partners, as well as improve our proprietary tech enabling gasless transactions for users.”
The extended seed also saw support from well-recognized individual investors across the crypto industry, including Anbessa, Eric Cryptoman, Lady of Crypto, Satoshi Stacker, That Martini Guy, Zoran Kole, and dozens more. Notable investors who participated in the initial round include B3V, Blue7, and T&B Media Global, among others.
“It is clear to us that the next stage of blockchain innovation will be centered on simplifying how users interact with dApps and eliminating the cost barrier for individuals that are new to the space,” said Kamran Iqbal, MH Ventures general partner, in a statement. “LightLink is at the tip of the spear when it comes to providing gasless transactions to the market, and we are incredibly excited to help support the team to build the next generation of DeFi projects.”
LightLink has reached 115,000 daily transactions and a total of 18.5 million transactions on its Mainnet, and it is growing at a rapid pace. Just recently, LightLink announced a partnership with Animoca Brands, which helps advance digital property rights for gaming and the open metaverse.
Select projects under Animoca Brands now have the opportunity to use LightLink’s L2 technology to make their dApps more accessible and user-friendly.
The company has also integrated with Celestia, a modular data availability network, on Testnet and is in the final stages of integrating on Mainnet. Additionally, LightLink is set to be listed as the first Optimium L2 with proprietary tech on L2BEAT.
Looking ahead, the company is excited to announce its LL token launch, supported by LightLink’s Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool (LBP) on Fjord Foundry, promising a fairer token distribution and efficient price discovery. LightLink’s Token Generation Event (TGE) is set to launch on April 21 and run through April 23.
Integrating Optimium with its proprietary stack, LightLink potentially offers a transaction throughput more than 400 times Ethereum’s, ensuring unmatched scalability and a streamlined user experience.
LightLink already powers over 25 partnerships, including Animoca Brands, and is being integrated in Translucia, a $300 million venture by T&B Media Global and MQDC. LightLink has around 20 people.
Asked why we need a new blockchain, Hui said in an email to GamesBeat, “We live in a multi-chain world. Layer 2s are a very new form of technology, and there are only a few of us on mainnet. To gain real-world adoption, we need high scalability, which only Layer 2s can provide. Among all the Layer 2s, we are the only chain with truly gasless transactions, an enterprise focus, and a large network in the Asia Pacific region at the same time.”
I also asked how the company achieves its gasless transactions.
“One of our big differentiators is Enterprise Mode, which is what enables the gasless transactions for dApps built on our platform,” Hui said. “At a high level, Enterprise Mode creates a gas station that nullifies transaction fees over a set period of time, leveraging our ‘tx.gasPrice = 0’ feature. This allows developers to whitelist users based on their wallet to provide a seamless reduction in fees from a user’s perspective.”
He also said, “This feature also enables the second defining feature of LightLink, which is predictable costs. Since developers will be able to use Enterprise Mode to receive a relatively fixed gas fee per transaction, this by extension allows them to have a better overall grasp on the overhead for any given project. In other words, it makes it easier to plan and budget appropriately when building on chain.”
In closing, Hui said, “Lastly, LightLink’s Layer 2 network is built from the ground up to support projects that have high computational requirements, such as web3 games. While other chains have also targeted this as a key feature of their offering, our chain is lightning fast, with processing speeds of 5,712 transactions per second at a 500-millisecond response time. This provides developers with the speeds necessary to build truly ambitious projects without worrying about a bottleneck on the network side.”
