Zama Becomes First FHE Unicorn with $57M Series B Round

Zama, a leading cryptography firm advancing fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) for blockchain and AI, has secured $57 million in a Series B round co-led by Blockchange Ventures and Pantera Capital. The raise pushes Zama’s total funding above $150 million and values the company at over $1 billion, making it the first unicorn specializing in FHE.

FHE enables computation on encrypted data without exposing its contents, offering a transformative solution for privacy in blockchain, artificial intelligence, healthcare, and defense. Zama's recent funding coincides with the launch of its public testnet and will support its upcoming mainnet rollout, ecosystem development, and continued research.

Zama’s protocol empowers developers to create fully encrypted decentralized applications (dApps) without requiring deep cryptographic knowledge. Potential use cases include private stablecoin issuance, secure asset tokenization, identity verification, and confidential governance mechanisms in emerging network states. Its real-world applications also extend to sectors requiring secure data processing, such as medical research and national defense.

Ken Seiff, co-managing partner at Blockchange Ventures, emphasized the significance of Zama’s technology, stating it could reshape confidentiality in both blockchain systems and cloud computing at large. “This is our third and largest investment in Zama. Not since I first saw Ethereum in 2014 have I seen something this foundational,” he noted.

Zama’s Series A round raised $73 million, led by Multicoin Capital and Protocol Labs. With strong backing from leading crypto VCs, Zama is poised to lead the next generation of privacy-first infrastructure for decentralized technologies.

As blockchain scalability and security continue to evolve, Zama’s pioneering use of FHE could play a critical role in the future of private, decentralized computing.