Gasp Raises $5 Million for Cross-Chain Service

Gasp has secured $5 million in private funding from investors including Polychain Capital and Master Ventures.

Gasp, formerly known as Mangata Finance, is an EigenLayer Actively Validated Service (AVS) that has raised $5 million in private financing. Polychain Capital, CMS Holdings, Master Ventures, Token Metrics, and Cluster Capital supported the investment.

The are reportedly valued at $80 million, with the sum raised reaching $11 million, as reported by The Block, citing sources close to the deal. 

Peter Kris, the CEO, stated that the company began fundraising in November 2023 and just concluded the round using a SAFE with token warrants.

The newly raised funds will be put toward hiring more marketers and getting the service and the $GASP token up and running faster on the mainnet. Those who own the Mangata X (MGX) tokens—an economic testnet token that the company launched a year ago—will be the first to get the token through an airdrop. A portion of their airdrop will be distributed to MGX holders, according to Kris.

It uses Ethereum’s security features to allow Layer-2 nodes on the network to conduct cross-chain transactions. It currently only works with the Optimism and Arbitrum chains, but that will change as it adds other chains.

According to Kris, “Gasp on EigenLayer will make cross-chain atomic swaps as easy as calling a smart contract on Ethereum or any other connected chain.” He went on to say that the Gasp network, which relies on Ethereum for transaction finality through EigenLayer, was among the first EigenLayer AVSs to deploy.

Gasp will soon launch its testnet as an EigenLayer AVS, and this fundraising is happening in preparation for that launch.