Axiom Raises $20M in Series A for Smart Contract Platform

Axiom, a firm that specializes in smart contract infrastructure, has secured $20 million in a Series A funding round. Leading the funding round were Paradigm and Standard Crypto, along with contributions from Robot Ventures and Ethereal Ventures funds. The funding will be used to hire developers and expedite the development of Axiom’s first product.

Traditionally, accessing authenticated data on-chain required consensus among all nodes on the state of the data. Axiom proposes a new approach using zero-knowledge cryptography. This method allows users to prove the truth of a statement without disclosing any specific information, enabling verification without revealing sensitive data.

Axiom believes that the cost of data has led to limitations in on-chain applications, with developers having to remove features or create complex smart contracts to optimize data usage. By leveraging zero-knowledge cryptography, Axiom aims to enable on-chain applications to handle larger amounts of data at a lower cost.

The protocol launched its mainnet in 2023, granting developers access to historical Ethereum data, off-chain computations, and the ability to send data with zero-knowledge proofs. Axiom’s statement emphasizes that the demand for storing, accessing, and operating over authenticated data will only increase over time, and that cryptography and blockchains are the ideal tools to meet this demand.

Zero-knowledge proofs have found applications in various sectors, including banking, healthcare, energy, and voting systems. Numerous crypto firms are actively working on this technology to enhance scalability and privacy. Polygon, for example, introduced its Polygon zkEVM in March 2023, allowing off-chain batching of thousands of transactions with minimal data through cryptographic proofs.