Analog has obtained $16 million in funding to advance its cross-chain communication tools for developers. The round brings the startup’s valuation to a fully diluted state of $120 million.
Several Web3 funds and cryptocurrency initiatives contribute to the round, including Wintermute, Orange DAO, Benqi Finance, and Quantstamp. In addition to venture capital firms Tribe Capital, Alumni Ventures, and NGC Ventures, former Coinbase executive Balaji Srinivasan and Mike Novogratz’s family office, Samara Asset Group, are also participants in the funding.
In 2021, Victor Young and Sanchal Ranjan established Analog. Young identified a necessity for cross-chain data triggers to facilitate the execution of smart contracts while developing algorithmic trading algorithms. “Increasing awareness of the need for universal cross-chain interoperability inspired the conception of Analog,” the company’s originator said.
The startup’s team has prior experience working on projects from cross-chain ecosystems, including Cosmos and Chainlink, and the Polkadot ecosystem, including Moonbeam and Enjin. The team is developing a developer-facing product on Analog that facilitates data queries from smart contracts across multiple blockchain networks.
“To provide users with the most efficient routes and precise price discovery mechanism, a cross-chain DEX [decentralized exchange] aggregator will require data for each specified pair across multiple DEXs on different chains,” Young explained regarding how the solution can streamline the process of retrieving and analyzing on-chain data.
Analog is also introducing a software development kit for general message transmission to enable communication and interoperability across blockchains for asset transfers, automated market makers, decentralized exchanges, and nonfungible tokens.
“As more layer 1s and layer 2s emerge, the need for composability of these systems will become far greater — not only for tokens that are issued in between those projects but also DApps [decentralized applications] that have cross-chain functionalities and that depend on or can be improved by DApps in other chains.”
The proliferation of cross-chain communication solutions is a consequence of the accelerated multichaining of Web3. Cross-chain technology initiatives consist of LayerZero and Axelar, which are developing solutions to facilitate inter-network communication.
Analog differentiates itself from the established competition by integrating cross-chain development functionalities into a unified toolkit instead of depending on third-party solutions like Oracles.
Young stated, “We are working to demonstrate the breadth of our product’s reach across many different verticals and are placing a greater emphasis on developers.”