LightLink Network Ltd., an Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain that offers enterprises the ability to run decentralized apps with no fees, today announced the close of a $6.2 million extended seed round that will help the company grow its distributed ledger offering.

The extension brings $1.7 million in new investments with participation from MH Ventures and NxGen to the company’s initial seed round of $4.5 million in February led by MQDC and T&B Media Global.

The company provides a Layer 2 blockchain for Ethereum, the second largest blockchain by market cap only to the bitcoin blockchain, which allows for faster and cheaper transactions on the network during high congestion. L2 blockchains work alongside major blockchains by providing a way to offer extra functionality, speed transactions and lower fees by “rolling up” transactions before submitting them all at once to the primary, “Layer 1,” blockchain.

Blockchain technology is part of what is called Web3, or the decentralized web, where decentralized applications called dapps are run using self-executing smart contracts without the need for centralized authority. The activity of dapps relies on blockchain network activity which incurs transaction fees called “gas,” which is otherwise required to allow the network to operate.

LightLink sets itself apart from other L2 blockchain networks by providing enterprise developers the ability to subsidize transactions on its blockchain for users through a monthly subscription. Under the service, enterprise customers pay a fixed fee for up to 50,000 daily transactions, thus avoiding volatile demand-driven fees that come with normal blockchain activity, and dapp users can interact with apps without gas fees.

“Hefty transaction fees is the number one issue facing developers and businesses when trying to get their
tech on-chain. If the goal is to have mass adoption of blockchain, we need cheaper prices,” Roy Hui, founder and chief executive of LightLink told SiliconANGLE.

As an example, Hui said that a ticketing project could be confident that it could be deployed at scale without transaction costs burdening users or users needing to acquire native tokens to use the system. This opens up a number of different opportunities for decentralized exchange without network transaction fees making it easier to trade between different types of tokens such as stablecoins, which are used as a basis for exchange due to their low volatility.

“It is clear to us that the next stage of blockchain innovation will be centered on simplifying how users interact with dapps and eliminating the cost barrier for individuals that are new to the space,” said Kamran Iqbal, MH Ventures co-founder and general partner. “LightLink is at the tip of the spear when it comes to providing gasless transactions to the market.”

The company says it has achieved 115,000 daily transactions and a total of 18.5 million transactions on its mainnet since launch.

The news comes after LightLink announced a partnership with Animoca Brands Corp. Ltd., a company that develops and publishes blockchain-based video games, to integrate the company’s L2 network technology into selected projects. Using LightLink’s gasless transaction capabilities for Web3 gaming properties would greatly reduce the costs for transferring game items tracked on blockchain networks, such as when players earn rewards, make trades and interact within the games to track progress.

The company said that it would use the new funding to focus on enterprise partnerships and allocate it toward ecosystem growth such as critical enhancements to LightLink’s proprietary technology stack that allows quick, low-fee transactions on its network.

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