Fabric Cryptography, a Californian startup focused on the production of computer chips for privacy, has just closed a $33 million funding round.
The capital, raised in a series A round co-led by Blockchain Capital and 1kx, will be used to speed up and improve the development of processors dedicated to cryptography.
The work of Fabric could finally resolve the tension that often exists in the crypto world between trust and privacy, thanks to a mathematical compromise.
Let’s see all the details below.
Fabric startup: funding round of 33 million dollars for the production of privacy chip
Yesterday Fabric Cryptography, a startup from the Silicon Valley, announced with a post on X that it had obtained an important funding to support the production of privacy-focused chips.
The money raised is part of a Series A round valued at 33 million dollars co-led by VC Blockchain Capital and 1kx. Other established companies in the blockchain world also participated in the initiative, including Offchain Labs, Polygon and Matter Labs.
1/ We’re thrilled to announce that Fabric Cryptography has raised $33M in Series A funding to accelerate advanced cryptography workloads with our general purpose chip – the Verifiable Processing Unit (VPU). pic.twitter.com/DcboNxZV2c
— Fabric Cryptography (@FabricCrypto) August 19, 2024
As announced by the same hardware startup, the capital raised will be used to develop a new cryptographic processing unit.
This is the “Verificable Processing Unit” (VPU), a silicon chip that uses a specific instruction set architecture for cryptography.
The objective is to divide any type of algorithm into a mathematical element supported by the chip itself, with a focus on data privacy.
As stated in fact on this matter by Dr. Wei Dai, cryptographer and research partner at 1kx:
“The VPU can be programmed to execute practically any cryptographic workload efficiently. Unlike other fixed-function chips, which are common in cryptography, the VPU is future-proof and can adapt to new cryptographic algorithms as they are developed and produced”
In the midst of the growing popularity of zero-knowledge cryptographic proofs (ZK) Fabric has found a market to adapt its chips for on-chain security and privacy.
According to what was stated by the Californian startup, there are already tens of millions of dollars in pre-orders for the VPU, with release times estimated for the end of the year.
We remind you that the capital raised follows a seed round of 6 million led by Metaplanet with the participation of investors such as Inflection and Liquid2 Ventures.
The tension continues between trust and privacy
The commitment of the startup Fabric in the manufacturing of chips for cryptographic computation stems from the mission to resolve the growing tension between privacy factors and trust.
In a world like that of blockchain, where the development of new technologies travels at the speed of light, it is becoming increasingly difficult to place trust in individual companies.
After various financial crises and crashes that have occurred since 2008, such as the Theranos and FTX cases, it remains increasingly difficult to securely entrust one’s data to external companies.
It is now known that data protection is an issue in digital worlds: just think of the major hacks like Equifax or the Enron scams. Madoff. Snowden and Cambridge Analytica.
Fabric as a startup from Silicon Valley, is dedicated to finding a solution to the dualism that sees trust and privacy competing with each other. In all this, the models of privacy/business and privacy/convenience also clash.
Sometimes the integrity of one’s data and privacy wins. Other times one’s information is sold on the dark web or given to third-party companies with less than noble intentions.
the VPU of Fabric represents the right compromise in these challenges of human value, with mathematical encryption that removes the need to trust others.
During the last few years, billions of dollars have been invested in the production of AI chips, without however focusing on hardware for intensive mathematical computation. Here we are facing a turning point: trust is about to no longer be a problem.
It is also expected that the VPU will improve the speed and cost of cryptographic workloads. This compared to central processing units (CPU) and graphics processing units (GPU). As stated in this regard by the co-founder of Fabric in the blog post presenting the new chip:
“There is an entire world of advanced cryptographic algorithms that go beyond protecting our data and can actually start to guarantee trust, if we can run them efficiently”
The Fabric team and the vision for the future of chips
The startup Fabric, engaged in the development of privacy-oriented chips, was born from the idea of some former students of MIT and Stanford, Michael Gao, Tina Ju, and Sagar Reddy.
After presenting the idea of a processor that accelerates cryptographic algorithms at events such as the Science of Blockchain Conference in Stanford and zkSummit8 in Berlin, Fabric has started to gain visibility.
From there on, many veterans of AI hardware and software became incredibly enthusiastic about the opportunity to build the first completely new specialized hardware/software stack in a decade.
As of today, the Fabric team consists of over 60 engineers and leaders worldwide with work backgrounds from companies such as Nvidia, Apple, Intel, AMD, and Galois
Together the group is working on the most powerful, most economical, and most privacy-respecting computing processing platform in the world
Source: https://x.com/FabricCrypto/status/1825635631273488553/photo/1
The vision of Fabric on the future of the blockchain industry and the impact of the massive development of chips is much broader than it may seem.
The startup is building an IT base that will allow cryptographers, engineers, and developers to create research and products based on the trust team.
It is more about the production of a simple chip: we are talking about a sort of stack that will be able to power a myriad of future demands.
The intent is to support the broader cryptography community that brings their most ambitious ideas to life. The VPU is just the first of many projects that will serve this mission.