Author: momo, ChainCatcher
Recently, the open-source cryptography project Zama, which focuses on fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), has finally launched its testnet.
Over the past year, Zama has raised $130 million through two rounds of financing, reaching a valuation of $1 billion.
In June 2025, Zama completed a Series B financing round of $57 million led by Pantera Capital and Blockchange.
In March 2024, Zama completed a Series A financing round of $73 million led by Multicoin Capital and Protocol Labs, with participation from Blockchange, Stake Capital, Metaplanet, Ethereum co-founder & Polkadot founder Gavin Wood, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Filecoin founder Juan Benet, and other notable institutions and individual investors.
What is Zama's open-source fully homomorphic encryption technology? Why has it attracted significant funding? What are its recent developments? This article provides a brief overview.
[The rest of the translation follows the same professional approach, maintaining the specified translations for technical terms and names.]Zama Co-founder and CTO Pascal Paillier has over 25 years of experience in the IT security industry, focusing on designing and developing secure cryptographic primitives (such as fully homomorphic encryption, anonymous credentials, etc.) and cryptographic software for embedded architectures (such as smart cards).
Pascal Paillier has published dozens of research papers and holds approximately 25 patents, many of which are currently applied in smart card technology. Pascal Paillier is also a member of the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR), participated in the ISO SC 27 WG 2 (cryptography standards) work, and won the Best Paper Award at Asiacrypt in 2005.
Pascal Paillier is also a serial entrepreneur. Before founding Zama, he also established a cryptographic application consulting services company CryptoExperts.
Recommended Reading: 《Interview with Zama CEO: Four Years to Build a $400 Million Market Value, How Did the FHE "Wave Maker" Emerge?》
