Citrea

Citrea Raises $14 Million in Series A - October 31, 2024

Executive Summary

Citrea is the first Bitcoin rollup using zero-knowledge proofs to expand Bitcoin from a passive store of value to an active, programmable asset, while maintaining Bitcoin's security guarantees.

Funding Amount: $14 Million

Valuation: Undisclosed

Round Type: Series A

Announced: October 31, 2024

Headquarters: Istanbul, Turkey

Category: Blockchain - Bitcoin Layer 2

About Citrea

Citrea was founded in 2022 and is headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey.

Citrea is the first Bitcoin rollup using zero-knowledge proofs to expand Bitcoin from a passive store of value to an active, programmable asset, while maintaining Bitcoin's security guarantees.

Funding Round Details

Investment Amount

Citrea successfully raised $14 Million in this Series A funding round.

Lead Investors & Participants

Founders Fund (Lead Investor): Peter Thiel's venture capital firm leading the Series A - first Bitcoin ecosystem investment

Maven11 (Investor): Crypto-native venture capital firm participating

Mirana (Investor): Digital asset investment firm

dao5 (Investor): Crypto investment fund

Erik Voorhees (Angel Investor): Bitcoin pioneer and ShapeShift founder

Balaji Srinivasan (Angel Investor): Former Coinbase CTO and crypto thought leader

Nikil Viswanathan (Angel Investor): Alchemy co-founder investing in Bitcoin L2

Mert Mumtaz (Angel Investor): Helius CEO investing in Bitcoin infrastructure

Jameson Lopp (Angel Investor): Bitcoin security expert and Casa co-founder

Galaxy Digital (Seed Investor): Led $2.7M seed round in February 2024

Use of Funds

The $14 million Series A (bringing total to $16.7M) will accelerate development of Citrea's Bitcoin rollup infrastructure, expand the engineering team, build developer tools and documentation, and support ecosystem growth as Ethereum applications deploy on Bitcoin.

Key Metrics & Achievements

• $16.7 million total raised (Series A $14M + Seed $2.7M)
• First Bitcoin rollup using zero-knowledge technology
• EVM-compatible - all Ethereum apps can deploy unchanged
• Founders Fund's first Bitcoin ecosystem investment
• Developed by Chainway Labs founded in 2022
• Founded by team of computer scientists led by CEO Orkun Mahir Kılıç
• Enables Bitcoin to become programmable beyond store of value

Business Model

Citrea operates as a Bitcoin Layer 2 rollup, earning revenue from transaction fees on the network. As developers deploy applications (DeFi, NFTs, games) on Citrea, the platform captures fees from user transactions. The business model scales with application adoption and transaction volume, similar to Ethereum L2s like Arbitrum and Optimism.

Market Opportunity & Competition

Citrea competes in the emerging Bitcoin Layer 2 market with Stacks, Rootstock (RSK), Lightning Network, and upcoming Bitcoin L2s. Citrea differentiates as the only Bitcoin rollup using zero-knowledge proofs for security, EVM compatibility (enabling Ethereum app migration), and institutional backing from Founders Fund. Joey Krug called it "a major milestone in Bitcoin's evolution."

This fundraising report was announced on October 31, 2024 and represents verified data from TechCrunch, Crunchbase, Bloomberg, CoinDesk, PR Newswire, and official company announcements.