Blockchain Ecosystem Company Astria Raises $12.5M in Funding for Permissionless Rollup Development

Astria, a company focused on Blockchain technology, has secured $12.5 million in funding from investors including dba, Placeholder VC, and several others. The funds will be used to continue developing Astria's sequencing layer and stack, with the goal of deploying a permissionless rollup without a centralized sequencer. Astria, led by CEO Josh Bowen, is building the Astria Stack, which includes all the components necessary to launch an EVM rollup that uses the Astria Sequencing Layer for decentralized block building and Celestia for data availability. The company has already launched Celestia-based rollup Forma, which has seen significant activity since May, with 42,000 NFTs minted or purchased and a total bridge volume of 3 million $TIA.