Brevis Network Secures $7.5 Million Seed Funding to Enhance Blockchain Scalability with ZK Coprocessor

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Brevis Network, a ZK coprocessor, just raised $7.5 million in a seed funding round. This round was co-led by Polychain Capital and Binance Labs, as reported by Yogita Khatri for The Block.

So, what is Brevis? It's a startup that uses zero-knowledge technology to perform off-chain computations. This means they process data outside the blockchain, making everything faster and cheaper. The funding round included participation from IOSG Ventures, Nomad Capital, Bankless Ventures, Hashkey, and several undisclosed angel investors. Michael Dong, the co-founder, shared that they began raising funds in June and wrapped it up in September. The round was structured as a token raise, but he didn’t share the post-round valuation.

Brevis aims to improve blockchain scalability with its ZK coprocessor. By handling complex tasks, like data processing, off-chain and only sending verified proof back to the blockchain, they reduce the blockchain's workload. This boosts speed and cuts costs.

Dong pointed out that even with Layer 2 rollups, blockchain smart contracts struggle with complex, data-driven computations. For instance, accessing a decentralized exchange trader's historical trade data can be costly and slow on any blockchain, including Layer 2s. This limitation is why no decentralized exchange currently offers trading-volume-based fee tiers, a feature common on centralized exchanges.

Brevis tackles this issue by allowing smart contracts to offload complex computations to a cost-efficient and verifiable off-chain computing network. Dong mentioned that while Brevis competes with Axiom, RISC0's Steel, and Vlayer, it stands out because its technology is already in use. Many competitors are still in development. Recently, Vlayer raised $10 million in a pre-seed funding round to build its verifiable data infrastructure.

Currently, Brevis' ZK coprocessor is in beta mainnet stage. Partners like Kwenta, JoJo Exchange, and Trusta are already utilizing it. Other DeFi protocols, such as PancakeSwap, Frax, Gamma, Quickswap, Mask Network, 0G, Bedrock, and Mellow Finance, are developing products and features powered by Brevis.

Dong said their next focus is launching a decentralized prover network. This will allow anyone to join and manage workloads from applications built using Brevis. When asked about launching a token, he stated they don’t have any details yet. Additionally, Brevis is actively developing its "SpaZK Verifiable AI" product, which will be released in future phases.

Based in Singapore, Brevis currently has a team of 12 employees. They are looking to hire senior marketing and research and development professionals.

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