The developer of solutions for scaling the Ethereum network, Israeli startup StarkWare, has closed a $ 75 million Series B funding round. The investment session was led by the venture capital firm Paradigm.

Announcing our $ 75M Series B, led by @paradigm , with new investors (Three Arrows & @AlamedaResearch ), and old ones too ( @PanteraCapital , @sequoia , @foundersfund , @DCVC , @Wing_VC ).

– StarkWare (@StarkWareLtd) March 24, 2021

The round was attended by current investors Sequoia, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Pantera Capital, as well as Three Arrows and Alameda Research.

StarkWare co-founders Eli Ben-Sasson and Uri Kolodny told The Block that the funding came amid a period of explosive growth for the company, with headcount doubling in 2020 and demand for services growing “in every way imaginable.”

The firm is working on a phased deployment of the StarkNet Layer 2 protocol with its own implementation of ZK-Rollup technology called zkSTARKS.

Previously, it, together with the StarkEx engine, was used by DEX dYdX for a new version of the platform .

According to the co-founders, the demand for scaling solutions using ZK-Rollup is particularly high in the rapidly growing NFT market. They said they have struck deals with “some high-profile projects,” which will be announced later.

“The advantage of ZK-Rollups is that it offers Ethereum-level security that is much higher than sidechains. If users start trading NFTs for millions of dollars, the security of the underlying blockchain will become a critical issue, ”the startup said.

As a reminder, in 2018 Paradigm led the $ 30 million Series A funding round for StarkWare.