Matter Labs is the company behind zkSync, one of the leading zero-knowledge rollup solutions for scaling Ethereum. Founded in 2018 by Alex Gluchowski, the Berlin-based startup has raised over $450 million from investors including Blockchain Capital, Dragonfly, a16z, and others to build what it considers the endgame for Ethereum scaling.
zkSync Era, the company’s flagship product, is a layer-2 rollup that uses zero-knowledge proofs to bundle thousands of transactions into a single proof submitted to Ethereum. This approach inherits Ethereum’s security guarantees while dramatically reducing transaction costs and increasing throughput. The network went live on mainnet in March 2023.
What distinguishes Matter Labs from competitors is its focus on EVM compatibility through its custom compiler. zkSync Era can run Solidity and Vyper smart contracts with minimal modifications, lowering the barrier for existing Ethereum developers to deploy on the network. The system uses its own virtual machine (zkEVM) rather than directly executing EVM bytecodes, which provides more flexibility for optimization.
The ZK token launched in June 2024 via a large-scale airdrop to network users and contributors. Matter Labs has invested heavily in developer tooling, including native account abstraction (built into the protocol, not bolted on), a robust bridge infrastructure, and an ecosystem of grants and accelerator programs. The company operates with a distributed team across Europe and has positioned zkSync as a network for building an open, censorship-resistant internet rather than just a cheaper version of Ethereum.
