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New York, NY – April 24, 2025 – Inco, the project building the confidentiality layer for the blockchain stack, today announced a $5 million strategic funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz Crypto Startup Accelerator (a16z CSX). Coinbase Ventures joined as a new investor, with follow-on participation from 1kx Capital, OrangeDAO, South Park Commons, and Script Capital. This latest round brings Inco's total funding to $10 million, following a $4.5M seed round in February 2024 and a $500,000 round in March 2025.
Inco is developing a confidential computing protocol for existing blockchains using various cryptographic techniques. Its first product, Inco Lightning, provides confidentiality to any on-chain application. Powered by verifiable compute within a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), Inco Lightning offers confidentiality without sacrificing performance, crucial for applications like real-time gaming, high-frequency DeFi, and private transactions. Inco plans to support multiple L1 and L2 blockchains, starting with Ethereum and Base.
"Confidentiality is the final hurdle for mainstream blockchain adoption," said Remi Gai, Founder of Inco. "Just as SSL/TLS revolutionized the internet, Inco introduces a new confidentiality paradigm for blockchains. We're enabling privacy directly within business logic, risk management, and compliance, without compromising the base protocol's performance."
According to Paradigm research, lack of privacy is a major obstacle for TradFi firms entering DeFi. Inco addresses this by enabling confidential stablecoin payments and maintaining composability, fostering a new private DeFi ecosystem built on confidential tokens, including lending and trading.
Inco Lightning, focusing on speed and low latency, is the first of several planned solutions. Later this year, Inco will launch a distinct solution leveraging Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) for trustless, programmable on-chain confidentiality.
Key Milestones:
- Collaboration with Circle Research on a Confidential ERC20 token standard.
- Founding the Confidential Token Association with OpenZeppelin and Zama to establish industry standards.
- Joining the ERC3643 Association and implementing a confidential version for Real World Assets (RWAs).
- Strategic partnerships with Tally, Blocklive, and Toku for confidential on-chain voting, private event ticketing, and secure payroll.
"Confidentiality is crucial for crypto's mainstream adoption. We're thrilled to partner with Inco to bring this to the broader market," said Wei Dai, Research Partner at 1kx Capital. "Inco is well-positioned for success with the right technology, product, and go-to-market strategy."
About Inco:
Inco is building the universal confidentiality layer for Web3, empowering smart contracts with confidentiality to unlock new use cases and drive widespread adoption. Inco Lightning, its first product, enables high-speed confidentiality on networks like Base. Inco aims to bring Web2 experiences and sensitive applications on-chain. Learn more at https://www.inco.org/.
Compiled by CMO Intern team
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