Pantera Capital backs $57m for French cryptography firm Zama

French cryptography firm Zama has raised US$57 million in a series B funding round co-led by Blockchange Ventures and Pantera Capital.

This funding increases Zama’s total capital raised to over US$150 million, elevating its valuation to above US$1 billion.

Founded by Dr. Pascal Paillier and Dr. Rand Hindi, Zama specializes in fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) technology.

The funding announcement coincides with the launch of Zama’s Confidential Blockchain Protocol and its public testnet.

FHE allows computations on encrypted data without the need for decryption. This enhances security for applications in cloud computing and blockchain financial systems.

This protocol enables developers to create confidential decentralized applications (dApps) on Ethereum.

The company has plans to support additional blockchain platforms by 2026.

🔗 Source: Tech.eu

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ FHE’s four-decade journey from theoretical concept to practical application

Fully Homomorphic Encryption represents one of the longest journeys from theoretical concept to commercial application in modern cryptography.

The concept was first proposed in 1978 by Rivest, Adleman, and Dertouzos, but practical implementation remained elusive for decades as researchers struggled to create systems that could support both addition and multiplication operations on encrypted data1.

Early implementations were limited to supporting only one operation (either addition or multiplication), making them inadequate for complex real-world applications despite their theoretical promise1.

The technology has overcome significant performance barriers, with Zama claiming their FHE implementation is now 100 times faster than at launch, enabling practical applications that were previously impossible.

This development pattern is similar to other foundational technologies like public key cryptography, which also took decades to move from academic concept to widespread implementation, showing how revolutionary cryptographic advances often require extended maturation periods.