TLDR:
- Botanix Labs raised $8.5 million in a seed round to build a Bitcoin-native DeFi ecosystem.
- The funds will be used to develop the Spiderchain, a Bitcoin-native Layer 2 primitive with full Ethereum Virtual Machine equivalence.
Botanix Labs, a Bitcoin development startup, closed an $8.5 million seed funding round led by Polychain Capital, Placeholder Capital, Valor Equity Partners, and ABCDE, to establish the Spiderchain. This raise, following a $3 million pre-seed round in 2023, has brought Botanix Labs’ total funding to $11.5 million. The Spiderchain aims to scale the Bitcoin ecosystem, allowing applications and smart contracts from the Ethereum ecosystem to run natively on Bitcoin. The project, led by Belgian polymath Willem Schroé, has already released an early-stage testnet version generating substantial user engagement and activity. Botanix Labs plans to use the funding to expand its team and advance product development.
Spiderchain is distinguished from other Bitcoin ‘Layer 2s’ by its fully Bitcoin-native approach, contrasting with projects that utilize separate blockchains like Ethereum or Polygon. The technology utilizes bitcoin as its native asset and the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) as its software layer, executed within a decentralized network of multi-sigs. Botanix Labs’ vision is to facilitate Bitcoin’s evolution into a global monetary network, empowering individual sovereignty.
