P0x Labs, the cryptographic development team responsible for Manta Network, recently announced that it has successfully raised $25 million in a Series A funding round. Leading contributors to the funding include Polychain Capital and Qiming Venture Partners. With this round of funding, the company’s valuation has reached an impressive $500 million.
In addition to the funding news, Manta Network has also introduced the testnet of its layer-2 infrastructure, called Manta Pacific. This infrastructure will serve as the ecosystem for zero-knowledge (ZK) applications. The introduction of Manta Pacific aims to streamline the development of features and applications, making them more user-friendly. The raised funds will be utilized to expand the network, attract more users, and explore various use cases for Manta Pacific.
Kenny Li, the CEO of Manta Network, explained in an interview that the primary goal of Manta Pacific is to facilitate the development of ZK applications and ensure their usability. While ZK has gained attention as a valuable proposition, Li emphasized that it primarily serves as a feature set that enables diverse use cases for applications. However, one of the challenges faced is that developers specializing in decentralized app development may lack expertise in cryptography or prefer to avoid a steep learning curve.
To overcome this hurdle, Manta Pacific’s ZK application layer utilizes pre-compiled circuits that can be seamlessly integrated into applications with minimal code. According to Li, the ultimate goal is to implement ZK applications for patient data, allowing for self-sovereignty and ownership of medical information. However, Li acknowledged that this goal is still years away due to the challenges associated with accessing and aggregating fragmented data from hospitals, as they are not motivated to manage it effectively or adopt blockchain technology.
Manta Network has also identified a use case in the finance sector. They noticed that privacy concerns arise when users are hesitant to verify their identity due to the exposure of their entire wallet. To address this, a privacy layer through ZK-enhanced staked tokens was introduced, similar to Binance’s account-bound token. This has resulted in approximately 58,000 verified user mints, enhancing the usability of staked tokens for identity purposes while prioritizing user privacy.
The Manta Pacific testnet currently offers various ZK applications for users to access. These include zkHoldEm, a fully on-chain and private Texas Hold’em game; zkMe, a protocol for private and verified credentials; and zkPass, a privacy-preserving protocol for data verification.
Manta Network’s flagship nonfungible token private offering platform, Manta Atlantic, was launched in April 2023. Since then, it has minted over 300,000 zero-knowledge soulbond tokens across key ecosystem partners, including Arbitrum, Galxe, Linea, and CyberConnect.
With the successful Series A funding, Manta Network is well-positioned to further expand its network, attract more users, and explore innovative use cases for its Manta Pacific infrastructure. The company’s mission to make ZK applications user-friendly and accessible holds great potential for advancing privacy and data ownership in various industries.
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