Hemi Labs, a startup co-founded by former Bitcoin developer and Bloq co-founder Jeff Garzik, has raised $15 million in its first round of funding. Binance Labs, Breyer Capital, and Big Brain Holdings led the round for the company, which says it plans to combine the powers of Bitcoin and Ethereum into a single “supernetwork.”
Hemi Labs launched in July at this year’s Bitcoin conference in Nashville, touting a new technology that integrates Bitcoin into an Ethereum virtual machine. The goal is to allow Ethereum smart contracts to communicate directly with Bitcoin, filling a gap in the technology that has existed since its inception.
Co-founder Max Sanchez said the company plans to use the funds to bolster Hemi’s engineering team, add more Bitcoin interoperability features, and offer developers advanced customization, as well as incentives, grants, and community adoption. Sanchez declined to share the company’s valuation.
In 2016, Sanchez joined Garzik’s incubation program at Bloq, where he co-founded a company called VeriBlock. While that venture didn’t pan out, Sanchez transferred the technology he developed into Hemi, which uses his novel consensus mechanism known as Proof-of-Proof.
“It’s kind of the evolution of some of the technologies that we built with proof of proof,” Sanchez said. “And then we’ve integrated that into a chain that makes sense in 2024 versus 2017.”
For now, Sanchez says the company is generating the most excitement among web developers and computer scientists, but he hopes it will soon appeal to a broader audience. He described Hemi as a great place for anyone looking to do decentralized finance using Bitcoin and Ethereum assets.
Hemi isn’t the first company to try to fill this gap. In July, two startups called ByBit Web3 and Ignition announced a partnership to provide users with a DeFi-based way to integrate Bitcoin and Ethereum. Sanchez believes Hemi differs from these and other companies because it uses newer technology and transcends the respective communities of the two blockchains.
Other investors in the round include Crypto.com, Web3 Ventures, Hyperchain Capital, Alchemy and SALT Fund, among others.
“The Hemi team has a clear and compelling vision for harnessing the programmability, portability and potential of Web3,” said Ted Breyer of Breyer Capital, an early investor in Facebook and Spotify. “With a remarkable track record, they are uniquely positioned to make this happen.”
