 Polychain, Franklin Templeton back Bitlayer’s $9M Series A extension 
2024-10-09

Bitcoin layer-2 platform Bitlayer has extended its recent Series A round of funding, attracting additional capital from previous investors Franklin Templeton Digital Assets and Polychain Capital.
According to an Oct. 8 announcement, the startup secured an additional $9 million in funding. SCB Limited, RW3 Ventures, Selini Capital, and G-20 Group were also participants in the round.
Bitlayer is behind the OpVM solution, a new technology that combines two types of proofs — fraud proofs (BitVM) and validity proofs (using OP_CAT) — to create a verification solution for Bitcoin’s base layer. It enables the network to verify a broad range of computations, supporting the security and functionality of protocols running on the Bitcoin network.
Bitlayer’s mainnet went live in April 2024 and has amassed nearly $900 million in fees in September alone, according to data from DefiLlama. At the time of writing, it has a total value locked of $380.7 million. The additional capital will support the upcoming launch of Bitlayer v2.
Also backing the startup are venture firms such as Framework Ventures, ABCDE, StarkWare, OKX Ventures, Alliance DAO, and UTXO Management. In March, Bitlayer raised a $5 million seed round, followed by an $11 million Series A round in July. The startup total funding to date stands at $25 million.
Franklyn Templeton eyes Bitcoin yield
In a previous interview with Cointelegraph, Bitlayer’s co-founder Charlie Hu noted that Franklin Templeton was exploring alternatives to unlock yield for its clients through digital assets, specifically through the Bitcoin network. 
“They’re sitting on $500 million Bitcoin exposure, and they want to earn more yield for their clients,” noted the co-founder during an exclusive interview at the Bitcoin 2024 conference. 
According to Hu, the startup and the investment manager are currently “in the exploration stage” of a potential joint project.
“We’ve been actively exploring this cooperation with Franklin Templeton Digital Assets on the Bitcoin staking and ecosystem development side,” said Hu, adding that: 