RiskLayer, a leading economic risk management protocol developed by Chainrisk Labs, has successfully closed its Builders round, a pre-seed funding round co-led by global venture capital firms Antler and Momentum6. The round also saw additional backing from Wagmi Ventures, Hypotenuse Ventures, and a roster of notable angel investors including Richard Ma, Ishaan Hiranandani, Agnish Ghosh, Alex, and Paul Taylor.
The innovative protocol has already made significant strides in the DeFi space, serving prominent protocols such as Compound, Angle Labs, Gyroscope, Ebisu Finance, and ecosystems like Arbitrum and Fuel Network. By leveraging Actively Validated Services (AVS) on EigenLayer, RiskLayer aims to address critical economic security concerns in DeFi and capitalize on institutional opportunities in the crypto space.
The company’s approach involves deploying two distinct AVSs: the Risk Oracle AVS, a comprehensive data provider for DeFi risk, and the Risk Rollup AVS, catering to application-specific needs on EigenLayer. The Risk Oracle AVS utilizes a “proof of risk” consensus to index user risk across different markets and assets, while the Risk Rollup AVS aims to secure application-specific rollups on RiskLayer.
Sudipan Sinha, Core Contributor at RiskLayer and CEO at Chainrisk Labs, emphasized the importance of scaling economic security from the protocol level to the application layer, making risk-optimized strategies more accessible and efficient for institutions and DeFi users.
With the funds raised from the Builders round, RiskLayer plans to accelerate the development of its AVS infrastructure and prepare for its upcoming pre-staking launch. Nitin Sharma, Partner and Global Co-lead for Web3 at Antler, expressed confidence in RiskLayer’s trajectory, praising the team’s depth of research and thought leadership in economic security.
Nilotpal Mukherjee, Founder of Symbiote and General Partner at Momentum6, commended the team’s focus on solving the multi-billion dollar problem in Web3 economic security, highlighting their deep association with the Eigen ecosystem. RiskLayer’s success in closing its Builders round signals a promising future for the protocol as it continues to innovate and address critical challenges in the DeFi space.
