Telos Secures $1M in Funding From Presto Labs to Develop SNARKtor-Powered L2 and SNARKtor Labs

[PRESS RELEASE – Hong Kong, Hong Kong, May 8th, 2024]

Telos today announced it has accepted a strategic investment of $1 million USD from Presto Labs, a leading Asia-based venture capital firm and liquidity provider with an established track record in algorithmic trading. The capital raise signals the start of a long-term partnership between the two organizations, with the funds being allocated to the development of the new SNARKtor-powered Ethereum Layer 2 zkEVM network being developed by Telos. The capital will also help incubate the growth of SNARKtor Labs, Telos’ Hong Kong-based business unit focused on the acceleration of Telos’ ZK-proving technology infrastructure. The SNARKtor Labs corporate mandate stipulates that its interests must be fully aligned with that of the TLOS token in so far as it drives value to the token, directly or indirectly. Any profits the entity earns will be used to buy and hold TLOS on its balance sheet.

Telos and Presto Labs’ teams will work together with a special focus on the Asia Pacific region, which has become a hub for Web3 innovation and investment. Executive Director John Lilic unveiled plans for Telos’ new zkEVM L2 during his recent keynote speech at TOKEN2049 in Dubai, where Telos was one of the event’s title sponsors. Presto’s investment will help expedite the completion of the L2, which Telos is co-developing with leading ZK research firm, Ponos Technology.

“Presto Labs is one of the best in the world at what they do and partnering with them is going to be of great benefit to the Telos team and community. We are very fortunate and grateful for the opportunity,” said Lilic on the new alliance. “Our organization looks forward to deploying this new capital efficiently to enhance the growth of our new network, and to bolster the impact that SNARKtor Labs can have as we work to educate the world on the effectiveness that ZK technology can have at scale.”

Presto Labs was founded in Singapore in 2014 and has since provided funding for many leading pioneers in the blockchain development space. The Presto team views Telos’ recent innovations in the ZK-proving space, starting with SNARKtor, to be a leading indicator of the powerful role the project can play in the years to come when it comes to this nascent technology.

“We always take a data-driven and technology-focused approach, and we were extremely impressed with what Telos is building and wanted to be a part of it,” said Presto Labs co-founder Yongjin Kim. “This is the start of a long-term partnership between our two teams that can play a significant role in the mainstream adoption of blockchain through technology that has practical global use cases like the new network Telos is building.”

Telos launched in 2018 through a fair drop network launch that did not include a token sale or ICO. Since its inception, the Telos Foundation has helped oversee two primary networks, Telos EVM and Telos Zero, and is now also focused on working with partners like Presto Labs to develop a highly performant and succinctly provable SNARKtor-powered L2 zkEVM. Telos and Presto Labs’ new partnership will also include additional initiatives largely concentrated in Asia, where a significant portion of the two entities’ work will be based out of.

About Telos

Telos is a decentralized blockchain ecosystem launched in 2018 without any ICO or VC funding that includes Telos EVM, the world’s fastest EVM, and Telos Zero, a high-speed native consensus layer. An upcoming hardware-accelerated zkEVM Layer 2 on Ethereum is also in development and will be powered by SNARKtor, a scalable and robust protocol for decentralized recursive proof aggregation that aims to enhance data protection and scalability for global use cases. Telos’ core mission of bringing self sovereignty worldwide is overseen by The Telos Foundation, an ownerless foundation dedicated to advancing the Telos blockchain network and its community.

About Presto Labs

Presto is a Singapore-based algorithmic trading and financial services firm founded in 2014. Presto focuses on delivering exceptional value for clients through a rigorous research-driven approach to investment and trade execution. With more than a 100 million trade executions in a day, Presto is a leading financial services firm in both digital assets and traditional finance markets.