Flashbots, an Ethereum-centric research and development startup, has raised $60 million in a Series B round led by crypto-focused investment firm Paradigm. According to a company spokesperson, the raise will be used to fuel the continued development of its maximum extractable value (MEV) network, SUAVE. The investors in the round were selected based on their reverse pitches in a ‘beauty contest’ for decentralization, and no other backers beyond Paradigm were named.
The SUAVE platform is an independent network that can act as a mempool and decentralized block builder. Developers can use SUAVE to launch intra-block applications such as block builders or orderflow auctions, creating cheaper and more private transactions than those traditionally found on chains like Ethereum. Flashbots also builds MEV-boost, a piece of MEV-optimizing middleware used by most of the validators that operate Ethereum.
The Block first reported on the funding round, citing a July 21 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that showed Flashbots had raised $30,353,089 of a $59,999,919 target. The publication said the round carried a $1 billion valuation, though a Flashbots spokesperson declined to confirm that figure to CoinDesk.