Zama, a leading open-source cryptography company specializing in Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), has secured $57 million in a Series B funding round.
The funding was co-led by prominent U.S. investors Blockchange Ventures and Pantera Capital.
The latest round brings Zama’s total funding to over $150 million and boosts its valuation past the $1 billion mark, making it a recognized unicorn in the blockchain infrastructure space.
The newly raised capital will be used to accelerate the launch of Zama’s mainnet, expand its ecosystem of partners, and fuel research initiatives aimed at making secure blockchain applications faster and more scalable.
Pioneering Confidential Smart Contracts with FHEVM
At the heart of Zama’s innovation is its FHEVM (Fully Homomorphic Encryption Virtual Machine).
The FHEVM a cutting-edge framework that allows encrypted data to be processed directly on-chain without compromising confidentiality or composability.
The framework enables the execution of smart contracts in a completely confidential environment, opening the door to a wide range of secure applications.
Financial institutions can now leverage public blockchains to issue confidential stablecoins, manage tokenized assets, and ensure regulatory compliance, without exposing sensitive data.
Zama’s FHEVM provides a powerful toolkit for building secure, decentralized financial infrastructure.
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Unlocking New Blockchain Use Cases Through Confidentiality
Zama’s technology extends far beyond financial applications. One major use case is the confidential distribution of tokens, balances and ownership remain encrypted on-chain, offering privacy protection for investors and reducing their exposure to malicious actors.
Additionally, the Zama Protocol enables “proof of humanity” for identity verification, allowing applications to confirm whether users are human without compromising their anonymity.
This is increasingly relevant as AI-generated activity proliferates across decentralized systems.
Zama also empowers network states and on-chain communities to operate confidentially, supporting governance, identity, and registry functions securely on public blockchains.
Tackling FHE’s Core Challenges: Speed, Hardware, and Usability
Historically, FHE has been limited by performance constraints, but Zama is changing that.
The company has already made its FHE systems 100x faster than when it was founded, allowing for support of real-time on-chain payments.
Looking ahead, Zama aims to improve scalability by another 100x within five years, making the technology viable for high-volume use cases.
By integrating GPU acceleration, Zama can currently process hundreds of transactions per second, with plans underway to develop a dedicated FHE-optimized chip.
On the developer side, Zama emphasizes usability by allowing smart contract development in familiar languages like Solidity, eliminating the need to learn new syntaxes or deploy to unfamiliar chains.
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Confidentiality Becomes a Core Requirement for Web3 Infrastructure
According to Zama CEO Rand Hindi, the Series B raise signals more than just financial backing, it reflects a paradigm shift in how confidentiality is viewed in the blockchain world.
“Confidentiality is no longer a niche concern, it’s a foundational requirement,” he stated.
With regulatory scrutiny increasing and institutional players entering the crypto space, the demand for secure, compliant, and private computing is rising fast.
Zama’s FHE technology not only enhances privacy but also maintains the openness and decentralization that define public blockchains.
As Zama continues to advance the field of FHE, it’s positioning itself at the forefront of a more private, secure, and scalable Web3 era.
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