Swiss startup Zyfi, a Paymaster-As-A-Service platform, has successfully raised $2 million in a recent private funding round. The announcement on June 10 revealed that this strategic investment is aimed at boosting Zyfi’s innovative gas abstraction layer on zkSync, which is set to revolutionize the on-chain experience through native account abstraction.
Zyfi is reshaping the DeFi landscape by allowing any tokens to be utilized as gas for transactions. The fundraising round attracted participation from top industry players, including Everstake Capital, Tenzor Capital, Apvc.capital, Criterionvc, NxGen, Majinx Capital, v3ntures, Momentum8, and various other investors.
Having processed over 815,000 transactions and benefiting more than 110,000 users with gasless flows on zkSync, Zyfi has proven its capabilities and appeal. The platform has successfully integrated with major protocols like Zerolend, Increment Fi, Pancakeswap, zkMarkets, Libera, and various NFT collections on zkSync.
Zyfi is aiming to address critical DeFi bottlenecks. The DeFi ecosystem often faces challenges with clunky user experiences, especially when users encounter gas shortages mid-transaction. Zyfi tackles this problem by leveraging native account abstraction on zkSync.
This technology enables decentralized applications (dApps) to offer users the option to pay gas with any ERC-20 token or for the dApps to cover part or all of the gas costs using custom logic. This innovative approach streamlines transactions and eliminates the need for users to manage Ethereum for gas fees, thereby democratizing access to DeFi services.
Zyfi’s solution is powered by an API that simplifies protocol complexities, allowing developers to focus on product development. This not only enhances user experience but also encourages broader engagement on-chain.
Founder of Zyfi, Gauthier Vila, stated, “At Zyfi, we are committed to addressing crucial challenges within the DeFi ecosystem and empowering developers to create seamless DeFi experiences for users. This is revolutionary because developers can now focus on improving their products with an API that simplifies protocol intricacies.”
Denys Vashchuk, General Partner at Everstake Capital, shared similar sentiments, emphasizing how Zyfi accelerates zkSync adoption and empowers developers to prioritize innovation without distractions.
The recently acquired $2 million will be strategically used to support the development of software development kits (SDKs) and paymaster services for dApps. Zyfi also plans to enhance utility for governance token holders and advocate for research on account abstraction across all blockchain networks, including the implementation of EIP-7702.
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While ZK rollups are not inherently confidential, some projects enhance financial privacy or support anonymous voting by concealing user information. Adoption of ZK rollups began less than two years ago, with Polygon being among the early adopters. The 2024 bull market further boosted the prominence of ZK rollups, turning “ZK” into a recognizable brand.
Matter Labs, the developers of the Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution zkSync, have decided to forgo their attempts to trademark the term “ZK,” which stands for “zero knowledge” proofs. This decision follows strong criticism from ZK researchers, advocating for ZK technologies to be treated as a public good accessible to all.