EigenLayer AVS Gasp raises funds at $80 million token valuation

Mangata Finance, a cross-chain swap protocol, has been renamed Gasp and has announced a new $5 million private funding round in anticipation of the testnet’s launch as an EigenLayer Actively Validated Service, or AVS.

Several investors, including Polychain Capital, CMS Holdings, Master Ventures, Token Metrics and Cluster Capital, backed the round, Gasp said on Wednesday. There was no lead investor in the round, but Cluster Capital contributed the largest stake at 30%, Gasp founder and CEO Peter Kris told The Block.

Gasp began its fundraising efforts last November and completed it this month, Kris said, noting that the investment was structured as a SAFE (simple agreement for future equity) with token warrants.

A source with direct knowledge of the matter told The Block that the round brought Gasp’s fully diluted token valuation to $80 million.

What is Gasp?

Gasp, formerly known as Mangata Finance, is a cross-chain swap protocol that currently supports transfers between Ethereum scaling networks such as Arbitrum and Optimism. The goal is to eventually support all blockchains.

Initially incubated by Polychain, Gasp started within the Polkadot ecosystem in 2020. However, according to Kris, it was not launched on the mainnet because the team did not trust Polkadot. Gasp is now developing further OwnLayera popular Ethereum recovery protocol, and will launch its testnet as EigenLayer AVS in the coming weeks.

An EigenLayer AVS uses Ethereum’s security features through EigenLayer without creating its own consensus mechanisms. “The Gasp network relies on Ethereum for finality of transactions through EigenLayer, making it one of the first EigenLayer AVSs to be deployed,” said Kris. He added that “Gasp on EigenLayer will make cross-chain atomic swaps as easy as calling a smart contract on Ethereum or another connected chain.”

Gasp mainnet and token launch

After a successful testnet, Gasp plans to move on to the mainnet and token launches. Kris said that a new token called GASP will be introduced and dropped for users, including those who hold Mangata X (MGX) tokens. “MGX is an economic testnet that we ran a year ago. MGX holders will get a share of the airdrop from GASP,” he said.

The Gasp team currently consists of 22 people and has plans to expand, especially in marketing, Kris said. The latest private funding round brings Gasp’s total funding to date to approximately $11 million.