Web3 cross-chain protocol Axelar has announced over 60 chains including Stacks, Moonriver, Hedera Network and Iron Fish have joined a devnet-phase pilot of Interchain Amplifier.

In an announcement, Axelar said the Interchain Amplifier is a smart-contract-based developer toolkit that makes new-chain integrations permissionless by automating routing and translation across Axelar’s blockchains. Axelar is a decentralized interoperability network connecting all blockchain ecosystems, and applications. Axelar is backed by Binance, Coinbase, Dragonfly, Galaxy and Polychain.

The network claims Interchain Amplifier is the first service of its kind to allow permissionless connectivity across major blockchain networks including Bitcoin, Ethereum, EVM chains, IBC, Hedera and 64 more chains.

“The excitement around Bitcoin L2s and other novel blockchain approaches now has an outlet,” said Georgios Vlachos, co-founder of the Axelar Foundation, in a press release. “I’m thrilled to see such a diverse group of consensus mechanisms leading the move to interoperability that’s fast, open and permissionless,” added Vlachos.

Axelar Founded in 2020

Axelar was co-founded and launched in 2020 by Georgios Vlachos, a founding team member of the Algorand blockchain, and Sergey Gorbunov, who has a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  Gorbunov has worked on designing advanced cryptographic protocols and systems.

Axelar delivers secure cross-chain communication for Web3 so that decentralized application (dApp) users can interact with any asset or application, on any chain, with one click.

Axelar Raises $35M at $1B Valuation

In 2022, Axelar, secured $35 million in a funding round bringing its valuation to $1 billion. The funding came from Dragonfly Capital, Polychain Capital, North Island Ventures, Rockaway Blockchain Fund, Cygni Capital, Lemniscap, Olive Tree Capital, Blockchange Ventures, Node Capital, angel investors including Waikit Lau and Gokul Rajaram, and others.

The funding was used to support Axelar’s expansion as it continued to roll-out its mainnet, and followed on from the company’s previous $25m Series A raise in mid-2021.

In 2023, the tokenized secure note issuer Ondo Finance and Axelar unveiled the Ondo Bridge, a cross-chain mechanism designed to facilitate easy transfers of Ondo tokens across blockchains. The Ondo Bridge supports the issuance of these yield-bearing tokens, fostering liquidity while ensuring price stability.