Caldera Secures $15M Series A Funding to Develop the Metalayer, the Largest Rollup Ecosystem

San Francisco, United States, July 24th, 2024

Caldera, a leading rollup ecosystem focused on improving blockchain scalability and interoperability, has successfully raised $15 million in a Series A funding round. This round was led by Founders Fund and saw participation from notable investors including Dragonfly, Sequoia Capital, Arkstream Capital, and Lattice, bringing the company’s total funding to $25 million. The funds will be directed toward advancing Caldera’s Metalayer, a unified rollup network designed to enhance efficiency, security, and scalability by integrating the largest rollup ecosystems.

As blockchain projects face challenges such as high costs and complex deployment processes, Caldera offers a solution by allowing projects to create rollups with a single click, removing the necessity for in-house engineering teams. This service encompasses deployment, ongoing maintenance, security best practices, low fees, customization options, and a 99.99% uptime SLA.

Founded in 2022 by Matt Katz and Parker Jou, who met during their computer science studies at Stanford University, Caldera’s leadership team includes experts from top tech companies like Nvidia, Apple, Waymo, and Skiff, as well as prominent figures from the web3 sector.

"Revolutionizing rollup deployment is essential for achieving a truly scalable and decentralized blockchain ecosystem," said CEO Matt Katz. He emphasized that through Caldera’s transformation, the company has identified new areas that the upcoming Metalayer intends to address, specifically aimed at promoting seamless interoperability among diverse rollup frameworks.

Caldera’s Metalayer provides web3 teams with a range of tools to create high-performance, customizable application-specific rollups by leveraging frameworks such as Arbitrum Nitro, Optimism’s OP Stack, ZKsync’s ZK Stack, and Polygon CDK. This convergence fosters a unified developer experience while increasing the usability of the Ethereum blockchain.

Joey Krug, a Partner at Founders Fund, noted the importance of modular stacks for developers, highlighting that Caldera enables users to select their desired data availability, execution, and settlement layers for their rollup or blockchain. This approach allows developers to concentrate on their core products while Caldera manages the underlying infrastructure. Krug sees Caldera as serving two vital markets: established projects launching their own rollups and new teams without the resources to build a chain from scratch.

Currently, Caldera supports more than 50 rollups, with a total of 1.7 million unique wallets holding over $800 million in total value locked and more than 59 million transactions completed. Noteworthy chains within the ecosystem include Manta Pacific, ApeChain, Treasure, and Plume Network.

Anirudh Pai, a partner at Dragonfly, praised Caldera’s innovative capabilities, believing that the Metalayer will significantly contribute to blockchain scalability and enhance the Ethereum ecosystem.

About Caldera
Caldera is rapidly emerging as one of the fastest-growing rollup ecosystems on Ethereum, enabling web3 teams to launch customizable, application-specific rollups. With over 50 modular rollups in operations, Caldera empowers an ecosystem that shares collective network effects, ensuring heightened efficiency, scalability, and security. Its Metalayer acts as a vital connector among various frameworks, offering unparalleled interoperability and simplifying the developer experience, paving the way for Ethereum to achieve web-scale capabilities. Caldera has attracted $25 million in funding from renowned investors like Founders Fund, Dragonfly, Sequoia Capital, and Lattice.

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Kayla Gill
Senior PR Manager, Serotonin