Investment of $4M in Ligero for establishing Ligetron, a high-speed zkVM solution
Ligero, a Web3 startup, has announced the launch of Ligetron, a groundbreaking zero-knowledge virtual machine (ZKVM) platform designed to revolutionise the way privacy-preserving computations are handled on user devices. The platform, which can run on smartphones, mobile browsers, and a range of hardware from a Raspberry Pi to an NVIDIA H100, has garnered significant interest, with investments from notable firms such as Ego Death Capital, Galaxy Ventures, 1kx, Franklin Templeton, Nascent, Anagram, Robot Ventures, and Digital Currency Group.
One of the key advantages of Ligetron is its scalability. Unlike traditional ZK systems that demand gigabytes of RAM or specialized hardware, Ligetron's uniquely memory-efficient prover architecture requires under 100MB of RAM, making it practical for deployment on consumer-grade devices. This expansion of access to zero-knowledge technology could pave the way for widespread adoption.
Muthu Venkitasubramaniam, co-founder, CEO, and CTO of Ligero, believes that scalable privacy will be crucial for next-generation decentralised finance (DeFi), gaming, machine learning (ML) applications, and real-world asset tokenization. He also expressed his view that existing ZK-powered L2 technologies are cumbersome for practical use and lack composability.
Ligetron's potential lies in enabling fast, scalable, privacy-focused blockchain applications that run efficiently on mobile devices. For instance, Ligetron could revolutionise Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) processes in Web3 by enabling personal data to remain on users' devices while proving compliance via zero-knowledge proofs. This approach preserves privacy and censorship resistance by eliminating centralised data sharing and liability.
The platform's performance remains consistent across different devices and hardware. In a browser-based implementation, Ligetron can achieve 100 transactions per second, potentially enabling mobile-based zero-knowledge proof-powered applications. Ligetron's ZKVM platform is capable of handling 1,000 transactions per second on a single NVIDIA L40S GPU with under 2 GB CPU RAM.
Ligero plans to use the fresh capital to expand its engineering and business development teams. Wei Dai, a research partner at 1kx, joined Ligero's board of directors as part of the deal. Venkitasubramaniam stated that Ligetron's efficiency and versatility make it suitable for various applications, including DeFi, gaming, ML, and real-world asset tokenization.
The seed round was structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) with token warrants. With a valuation of $20 million after the seed round, Ligetron is poised to make significant strides in the world of privacy-preserving blockchain technology.
The Ligetron platform, with its promising scalability, is set to revolutionize investing in privacy-preserving blockchain technology, especially in the realms of decentralized finance (DeFi), gaming, machine learning (ML), and real-world asset tokenization, thanks to its unique capabilities and the interest from finance firms. Web3 startups like Ligero, with their cutting-edge solutions like Ligetron, are set to reshape finance and technology landscapes by bringing new opportunities for investing and leveraging zero-knowledge technology.
