Blockchains were pitched as borderless systems. In reality, they splintered into separate economies. Ethereum here. Solana there. Liquidity fenced in by protocol walls. LayerZero Labs entered that fragmentation in 2021 with a networking thesis, not a token pitch. Founded by Bryan Pellegrino, Co-Founder and CEO, Ryan Zarick, Co-Founder and CTO, and Caleb Banister, Co-Founder, the company grew out of the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab. Three engineers studying network systems decided crypto’s core bottleneck was not user growth. It was cross chain communication.
LayerZero Labs built a general purpose messaging protocol that allows decentralized applications to send data and assets securely across blockchains. Not just asset transfers. Arbitrary payloads. Contract to contract. Chain to chain. Immutable Endpoint contracts deployed on each supported network manage routing, verification hooks, sequencing, and fees. Developers build OApps on top of that base layer, defining how messages are encoded and executed on destination chains. The architecture treats interoperability like internet plumbing, not a side feature.
The standards deepen the moat. Omnichain Fungible Tokens maintain a unified global supply across chains rather than fragmenting into wrapped derivatives. Omnichain Non Fungible Tokens move across ecosystems while preserving ownership and uniqueness. OFT and ONFT patterns give developers canonical frameworks instead of one off bridge logic. Documentation from networks such as Hedera reinforces the positioning: LayerZero operates as interoperability infrastructure, not a single purpose bridge.
In April 2023, the company closed a $120M Series B at a $3B valuation. More than 30 investors participated, including a16z crypto, Sequoia Capital, BOND, Circle Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, OpenSea Ventures, Samsung Next, OKX Ventures, and Christie’s. Coverage from Reuters and Fortune placed LayerZero Labs squarely in the center of serious startup news, not speculative hype. Total capital raised reached roughly $250M, with offices in Vancouver and Hong Kong and plans to expand further into Asia Pacific markets.
The first year of protocol activity delivered measurable proof. Over 2M messages relayed across 30+ chains. More than $7B in total value locked secured by applications using LayerZero. Over $6B in transactional volume processed. 30,000+ contracts deployed on testnet and 3,500 on mainnet. Adoption across 10,000+ unique applications and hundreds of thousands of end users. These are infrastructure numbers, not vanity metrics, and they anchor the company’s position in serious startup news cycles.
LayerZero Labs continues hiring across engineering, business development, marketing, and ecosystem roles through its Greenhouse board, with regional focus spanning Hong Kong, Japan, UAE, and institutional verticals. The buildout reflects a protocol first mindset backed by capital and adoption. In a market crowded with narratives, LayerZero Labs is executing at the layer beneath the noise, where messages move, value transfers, and interoperability becomes operating reality. For founders, developers, and investors tracking durable infrastructure plays in startup news, this is one to study closely.
