Analog closes $16M funding for cross-chain communication tools

The funding is backed by several crypto projects and venture firms, including Near, Wintermute, Orange DAO, Quantstamp, Tribe Capital and NGC Ventures.

Web3 platform Analog has secured $16 million in funding to advance its cross-chain communication tools for developers. With the round, the startup’s valuation reaches $120 million on a fully diluted basis.

Backing the round are a number of crypto projects and Web3 funds, including Near, Wintermute, Orange DAO, Benqi Finance and Quantstamp. Other participants in the funding include venture capital firms Tribe Capital, Alumni Ventures and NGC Ventures, along with former Coinbase executive Balaji Srinivasan and Mike Novogratz’s family office, Samara Asset Group.

Analog was founded by Victor Young and Sanchal Ranjan in 2021. While working on algorithmic trading bots, Young observed a need for cross-chain data triggers for smart contract execution. “Coupled with the increasing awareness of a need for cross-chain interoperability across the board, the idea of Analog was born,” the founder told Cointelegraph.

The startup’s team has previously worked on projects from the Polkadot ecosystem, such as Moonbeam and Enjin, and cross-chain ecosystems, including Cosmos and Chainlink. On Analog, the team is now building a developer-facing product that enables querying data from smart contracts across different blockchain networks.

“For instance, a cross-chain DEX [decentralized exchange] aggregator will need to pull data for each specified pair across different DEXs on various chains to provide users with the best routes and accurate price discovery mechanism,” Young explained on how the solution can simplify pulling and analyzing on-chain data.

Analog is also introducing a software development kit for general message passing, enabling 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.”

Solutions for cross-chain communications are growing as Web3 rapidly becomes multichained. Projects working on cross-chain technology include LayerZero and Axelar, both developing solutions to facilitate communication between networks.

To stand out from the well-established competition, Analog focuses on cross-chain development features combined in a single toolkit rather than relying on third parties, such as oracles. “We’re more developer-focused and are working on showcasing the breadth of our product’s reach through a lot more different verticals,” Young stated.