Blockchain Services Firm StarkWare Raises at a $2B Valuation

StarkWare, an Israeli blockchain services firm, announced it raised a Series C equity round at a $2 billion valuation. StarkWare had previously raised about $112 million, including a Series B earlier this year. This is the first time StarkWare has announced its valuation, and Co-Founder and CEO Uri Kolodny calls this an "opportunistic" raise. The blockchain services sector is growing fast, and some analysts believe it could grow 1,000% or greater over the next five years.

For a $2 billion crypto company, StarkWare is not well known, but customers of its STARK software stack have been successful, including:

- dYdX (DYDX), an Ethereum L2 with a $674 million market cap and $941 million in total value locked (TVL)

- ImmutableX (IMX), an Ethereum L2 for games and NFTs with a $1.3 billion market cap and $216 million TVL

- DeversiFi (DVF), a DEX with a $285 million market cap and $76 million TVL

- Sorare, a global soccer fantasy trading card NFT game with $21 million TVL

StarkWare claims it has handled over $215 billion in trades and over 51 million transactions since it launched.

StarkWare joins Metis and Maker in capitalizing on Ethereum’s high gas fees, which are encouraging growth in Ethereum L2s. The TVL into Ethereum's L2s has grown roughly 50% in the last month despite the price of ETH stagnating. If this trend continues, along with growth in the blockchain services sector, it's easy to see how StarkWare's investors justified a $2 billion valuation.

StarkWare has no native token and it has not commented on when a token might be released.