Astar, the versatile DApp protocol formerly known as Plasm, has raised $22 million in its latest strategic fundraising drive.
The funding round was led by Polychain and included Alameda Research, Crypto.com Capital, Digital Finance Group, and several other angel investors. Astar became popular after receiving the Polkadot parachain track last December, and the protocol was officially launched on January 17th.
Astar is currently in the process of becoming the first protocol to support two virtual machines on the Polkadot chain of pairs – the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and WebAssembly (WASM). While the EVM is currently active, the platform will migrate to WASM over time.
The Astar team is working on the Parity blockchain to achieve WASM integration. As a multi-chain protocol, Astar supports 1 EVM and non-EVM multilayer bridging. There are two Ethereum bridges currently active, while the Cosmos bridge is under development.
Sota Watanabe, founder of Astar Network, spoke about the impact of two virtual machines on one chain of Polkadot pairs:
“Interaction is not just a buzzword, but a reality in the Polkadot ecosystem, as all parachains are connected to different virtual machines using XCM. Astar will be the only parachain that supports both virtual machines, making them compatible with each other.”
The Astar team stated that the newly raised capital will be used to hire senior engineers in the industry to implement both EVM and WASM, and to invest in and develop original Astar ecosystem projects.
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Polkadot’s double chains are separate chains that run in parallel in the Polkadot ecosystem. It has been in development for five years and represents a breakthrough in technology across the chain.
