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Nebra raises $4.5 million seed round for ZKP technology led by Nascent and Bankless

Blockchain and zero-knowledge proof research organization Nebra announced that it secured $4.5 million from its pre-seed and seed round, led by Nascent and Bankless Ventures. 

Nebra said in a statement that a few angel investors, including Ethereum Foundation’s Tim Beiko, ETHGlobal’s Kartik Talwar, Celestia’s Nick White and Scroll’s Sandy Peng and Haichen Shen, also participated in the funding round.

Nebra plans to use the funds to advance and democratize zero-knowledge proof technology in lowering costs of proof settlement on Ethereum and other blockchains to create what it calls the Shared Settlement Layer of the new internet.

"This Shared Settlement Layer has the potential to unlock the full potential of blockchain technology and drive its deeper integration into people's everyday lives," a Nebra spokesperson told The Block. "It would enable the widespread adoption of privacy-preserving applications, such as private DeFi, identity solutions, and provable gaming."

Zero-knowledge proofs allow a party to prove the validity of a statement without having to reveal further information. The technology can revolutionize onchain privacy and improve blockchain scalability in a trustless manner, according to Nebra.

The Nebra team further said that it foresees the Shared Settlement Layer to boost interoperability between different zero-knowledge based Layer-2 and Layer-3 systems, and contribute to building a more composable and interconnected blockchain ecosystem.

"Just as Google revolutionized information access by aggregating internet data, and Uber transformed urban mobility by aggregating transportation resources, Nebra is pioneering a new approach to bring economy of scale in blockchain ZKP settlements," said Dan Elitzer, co-founder of Nascent.

In March, Nebra launched Universal Proof Aggregation (UPA), a solution for scaling zero-knowledge proof verification. It said UPA reduced verification gas fees by 10 times or more, and Worldcoin, Brevis and Altlayer already used Nebra’s technology.

“Zero-knowledge proofs are key to the future of privacy and scaling of blockchains,” said Shumo Chu, founder of Nebra. “This funding round, and the support of our growing list of partners, are important demonstrations of the value of Nebra’s unique solutions.”