Oasis Labs, a blockchain startup founded by computer scientists from the University of California at Berkeley, announced on Monday it has raised $45 million in pre-sale financing to develop a “privacy-first” cloud computing platform based on blockchain technology.
According to a press release, the new platform will combine secure software and hardware to enable privacy-preserving smart contracts. The project’s aim is to drive the adoption of the blockchain technology by overcoming the current “performance, security and privacy limitations” that have hindered its widespread usage by companies.
“Blockchains are poised to revolutionize much of the way we live, but many developers and organizations have understandable concerns about performance and privacy limitations that are currently hindering their ability to embrace the technology,” Oasis Labs CEO Dawn Song stated.
“The Oasis platform aims to give users control over their data, and at the same time deliver superior performance and privacy capabilities. Our goal is to build the scalable and secure decentralized internet that puts users first.”
In an announcement on its website, Oasis Labs pledged to provide further details regarding the platform “in the coming weeks”.
Meanwhile, a public paper, dated July 6, 2018, and authored by the startup’s co-founders and a number of other researchers describes a blockchain system dubbed Ekiden. Utilizing hardware-based Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), Ekiden “permits concurrent, off-chain execution of smart contracts within TEE-backed compute nodes, yielding high performance, low cost, and confidentiality for sensitive data.”
According to the paper, in preliminary tests of the Ekiden prototype network, the developers' team reported 600x greater throughput, 400x less latency, and 1000x less cost compared to the Ethereum network.
Crypto and VC majors back the project
Oasis Labs has attracted investment from a broad range of blockchain industry players, including cryptocurrency funds, hardware producers, and venture capital firms.
A total of 75 investors have rallied to finance the project, with a16zcrypto (the new crypto-focused fund of Andreessen Horowitz), Accel, Binance, DCVC (Data Collective), Electric Capital, Foundation Capital, Metastablea, Pantera and Polychain listed as contributors to the funding round.
“It’s exciting to see talented people like Dawn and her team working on ways to transition the internet away from data silos and towards a world with more responsible ways to share and own your data,” Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam said as quoted in Oasis’ statement.
With the completion of its capital raise, Oasis Labs is now seeking developers interested in applying for its testnet.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
