Binance Labs, the $10 billion venture capital arm of the prominent crypto exchange Binance, has made a significant investment in Sophon, a ZKsync elastic chain designed using Matter Labs' modular and open-source framework, ZK Stack. Discussions regarding this investment commenced in the summer, culminating in an agreement by August, as stated by Sebastien ('Seb'), the semi-anonymous co-founder and CEO of Sophon and former head of DeFi at ZKsync.
This round of investment was structured as a simple agreement for future tokens (SAFT), although Seb declined to disclose Sophon's current valuation. With this funding, Sophon has successfully raised over $70 million to date, having previously secured approximately $60 million through a node sale in May and an additional $10 million in a seed round earlier this year. Seb confirmed that no further funding rounds are anticipated.
Sophon, previously known as 'hyperchain', is a Layer 2 network being built using Matter Labs' ZK Stack framework. When asked about the distinctions between building on Sophon versus ZKsync, Seb indicated that while ZKsync Era, Optimism, and Arbitrum serve as generalist platforms, Sophon aims for deeper retail connections through a concentrated focus on platform experience and product.
In Seb's view, major players like Solana and Base represent Sophon's closest competitors, being highly retail-driven ecosystems. Sophon differentiates itself by utilizing the ZK Stack, enabling features such as native account abstraction, gasless experiences, and its capability to support the base gas token with SOPH.
Sophon is on track to launch its mainnet next month, with the SOPH token expected to be released concurrently. Seb noted that further details regarding the token will be disclosed later. Currently, Sophon employs around 20 staff members, with plans to recruit a senior Rust developer and a business development expert in the Asia Pacific region.
Sophon is excited about its recent partnerships with Aethir (AI), Azuro (predictions), and Beam (gaming), marking the initial projects in its ecosystem, with more partnerships to be revealed soon.
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