a16z Invests $70 Million in EigenLayer, EigenCloud Revealed

VC giant a16z crypto has bought an additional $70 million in restaking protocol EigenLayer’s EIGEN tokens, while the project today introduced EigenCloud, its novel developer platform.

Notably, a16z crypto previously led Eigen Labs’ $100 million Series B round. This latest investment will help the team’s effort to “commercialize” its new services. These, combined with EigenLayer’s third-party Autonomous Verifiable Services (AVSs) ecosystem, can “unblock thousands of app developers across crypto’s smart contract ecosystems and open the design space of crypto to any web2 developer,” the press release says.

Commenting on the investment, Ali Yahya, General Partner at a16z crypto, said that EigenLayer is “surmounting the technical bottlenecks of blockchains to enable a new category of applications built on verifiable solutions.”