SatLayer, a Bitcoin restaking platform built on the Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon, has raised $8 million in a pre-seed funding round.
Hack VC and Castle Island Ventures co-led the round, with Franklin Templeton, OKX Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Amber Group, Big Brain Holdings, CMS Holdings and others participating, SatLayer said Thursday. Undisclosed angel investors from firms including aPriori, Custodia Bank, LayerZero, Manta Network, Magic Eden, Sui and Pendle also joined the round.
An $8 million pre-seed round is significant. SatLayer co-founder Luke Xie told The Block that the project initially aimed to raise $4 million, but when fundraising began in April, the round was oversubscribed within a month. Although SatLayer raised double of its initial target, Xie said there was as much as $16 million in potential seed capital from interested parties.
Xie noted there was significant interest in enabling Bitcoin to become the core collateral asset for securing decentralized applications and infrastructure, which would enhance the security of the entire ecosystem.
The pre-seed round was structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) with token warrants, Xie said, declining to comment on the startup’s valuation.
What is SatLayer?
SatLayer is a Bitcoin restaking platform built on Babylon, a protocol designed to bridge BTC to yield-bearing proof-of-stake networks. Restaking allows users to earn additional rewards by locking up their staked assets again in different protocols known as actively validated services (AVSs) in the Ethereum and Solana restaking ecosystems, and as Bitcoin-validated services (BVSs) in SatLayer’s case.
Xie said that SatLayer is the first Bitcoin restaking platform built on Babylon. He added that while Symbiotic, a Paradigm-backed restaking protocol, also offers Bitcoin restaking through wrapped bitcoins and TBTC, its core architecture is on Ethereum, not on Babylon.
With SatLayer, users can now restake their Bitcoin and Bitcoin liquid-staking tokens from platforms like Solv Protocol, Lombard, Bedrock, pStake and PumpBTC that are used to secure BVSs, Xie said.
“Many in the space — especially those that have been around for a few years — have substantial bitcoin holdings sitting idle, which can be put to greater use,” he added.
SatLayer will offer users rewards in the form of points. Asked if those points will be converted into SatLayer’s native token in the future, Xie said, “We don’t have formalized plans for the token yet, and will announce at a later stage if/when details are available.”
There are currently about 10 people working for SatLayer, and Xie is hiring for various engineering, research, product and go-to-market roles.
