Blockchain-focused crypto startup Zama raises $73 million to protect data in use

Zama SAS, an open source cryptography startup focused on building Fully Homomorphic Encryption, or FHE technology, to protect privacy in blockchain and artificial intelligence applications, announced today that it has raised a hefty $73 million early-stage We announced that we have completed fundraising.

The Series A round was led by Multicoin Capital and Protocol Labs, along with Metaplane, Blockchange Ventures, VSquared, Stake Capital, and blockchain pioneers Juan Benet (Filecoin founder), Anatoly Yakovenko (Solana co-founder), Gavin Wood (co-founder of Ethereum, co-creator of Polkadot).

Zama is said to be a pioneer in the field of FHE, a new encryption technology that enables computations on encrypted data. This technology is designed to support the growing demand for robust data protection as organizations look for ways to protect consumer data without compromising its usefulness.

These days, it has become standard enterprise practice to encrypt data while it is in storage and while it is being transferred across networks. This is done to prevent hackers from reading your information if they somehow gain access to it. Because the data is encrypted, it is essentially worthless even if a malicious attacker were to steal it. However, data remains vulnerable when operationalized.

The problem is that applications that use encrypted data must unscramble that data before performing calculations. This creates an opportunity for hackers to access sensitive data in a readable format. It is this weakness that FHE seeks to address, allowing applications to use data while it remains encrypted.

Zama believes its FHE technology will transform data privacy, providing developers with access to a suite of open-source cryptographic libraries and tools to enable them to build a new generation of privacy-preserving applications. is focused on building.

The startup focuses on applying FHE in the blockchain and AI industry and has already released a number of products. Its latest product, his fhEVM, is said to be the first confidential smart contract protocol designed for blockchains compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. FhEVM allows on-chain state and transaction data to remain encrypted and is said to solve one of the key data security challenges in the blockchain industry.

Zama CEO Rand Hindi said his team envisions a world where data privacy is guaranteed by design, and intends to make FHE synonymous with privacy and ubiquitous. “This funding provides us with the resources to further strengthen the best and brightest cryptographic knowledge we already have on our team, while continuing to advance the cutting edge of what is possible in data privacy. ” he said. “Our investors, especially Multicoin and Protocol Labs, will lend us their valuable experience in bringing FHE to market in the blockchain space.”

In addition to building blockchain-focused FHE applications, Zama City is also working on building bespoke solutions for the AI, healthcare, financial services, and government security industries.

Kyle Samani, managing partner at Multicoin Capital, said he believes FHE will be the most important fundamental cryptographic primitive in the next decade of computing. “Zama’s technology is the key to building multiplayer, privacy-preserving applications,” he said, adding, “His groundbreaking work on open source FHE tools is just the beginning.” Ta.

Zama is not the only player looking to take advantage of the encryption benefits of FHE technology. Competitors include much larger companies like Intel, which announced in 2021 that it was working with Microsoft and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop a specialized FHE chip. . This allows applications to manipulate encrypted data without having to first unscramble the encrypted data.

IBM Corp., which first invented the technology in 2009, has also developed tools for developers to implement FHE. Startups such as Vaulttree Ltd. and Cornami Inc. have also closed significant funding rounds to build their FHE-based technology into practical applications.

Another potential competitor is MongoDB Inc. The company has built an alternative technology for encrypting data in use, making it available to its flagship database in 2022. At the time, MongoDB argued that FHE was too cumbersome for enterprises to use. The query process will be significantly slower. The company’s proprietary Queryable Encryption technology enables faster queries and avoids impacting application performance.

Zama said he will use the funding from today’s round to maintain open source libraries and hire talented engineers, software developers, and cryptographic researchers to work on a whole new class of FHE applications.

Image: Zama City