Ethereum restaking protocol Renzo, based on EigenLayer technology, raised $3.2 million in seed funding round. The developers said that the investment round was led by Maven11 Capital. Figment Capital, SevenX Ventures, IOSG Ventures and several other large companies also took part.
The startup was founded in August 2023. The developers began looking for investors in November and completed the round a month later. One of the founders Lukas Kozinski. Kozinski said Renzo's valuation was $25 million.
The protocol helps users reuse their ether (ETH) through EigenLayer. The beta version of the Renzo mainnet is currently running. released last month. The project plans to support liquid staking tokens (LST) in future updates.
To start working with Renzo, users need to deposit ETH and they will receive ezETH – Renzo's liquid restaking token (LRT). It can then be used in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications to generate additional profits.
“Renzo is a new 3rd generation protocol that can accept both native ETH and LST,” Kozinski said. He called platforms that only support liquid staking (Stader Labs) 1st generation, and platforms like Ether.fi (only ETH re-staking) as 2nd.
According to data, within a month after the launch of the beta version of the Renzo main network, the total value of locked funds (TVL) in the protocol exceeded $35 million. According to DeFi Llama, the same figure for EigenLayer is about $1.7 billion.
Kozinski noted that Lido's developers have grown their product into the largest liquid staking protocol. “They have made staking simple and accessible for everyone, and Renzo aims to do the same only at a new level. EigenLayer is extremely complex and requires selecting as well as actively managing node operators. Our project eliminates all difficulties.”