Cata Labs, a blockchain infrastructure startup, has raised $4.2 million in seed funding at a “mid-eight figure valuation,” the company announced Wednesday.

The fundraising round, which closed in March, was led by crypto venture-capital firm Spartan Group and included participation from Robot Ventures, Maven 11, Alchemy Ventures, HashKey Capital, Circle Ventures and Superscrypt, among others.

Cata Labs is building Catalyst, a cross-chain bridge that aims to make it easier for blockchains to communicate with each other. At present, popular layer 1 blockchains such as Ethereum and Solana cannot easily transact with other blockchains, creating a spurt in bridging projects like the Jump Capital-backed Wormhole and Andreessen Horowitz-backed LayerZero.

(by Kevin Reynolds)