A Cornell professor looked at every blockchain on Earth, decided they were all too slow, and built one that processes 4,500 transactions per second with sub-second finality. Emin Gün Sirer didn't just publish a whitepaper — he published the academic research that proved his consensus mechanism was mathematically superior. Avalanche is the blockchain for people who read footnotes. It's also one of the few chains where institutions — JPMorgan, Deloitte, governments — are actually building real things.
Founded
2018
HQ
New York, New York
Total Raised
$350 million
Founder
Emin Gün Sirer
Status
Active
Website
www.avax.networkTHE ORIGIN STORY
Emin Gün Sirer was a computer science professor at Cornell University who had been researching distributed systems and cryptocurrency since before Bitcoin existed. He created Karma, a virtual currency concept, in 2003 — five years before Bitcoin's whitepaper.
In 2018, a pseudonymous group called "Team Rocket" published a paper describing a new consensus protocol called Avalanche. Sirer and his team at Cornell built on this research, founding Ava Labs.
They raised $6 million in a 2019 seed round and launched the Avalanche mainnet in September 2020.
WHAT THEY ACTUALLY DO
Avalanche is a Layer 1 blockchain platform. Revenue comes from transaction fees paid in AVAX tokens.
Ava Labs (the company behind Avalanche) earns from enterprise consulting, subnet deployments for institutions, and the AvaCloud managed blockchain service. The AVAX token also has a deflationary burn mechanism — all transaction fees are permanently destroyed, reducing supply over time.
Subnets (custom blockchains on Avalanche) are the key enterprise play — institutions can launch their own blockchains with custom rules while benefiting from Avalanche's security.
THE PRODUCTS
Avalanche C-Chain (EVM-compatible smart contracts), Avalanche Subnets/L1s (custom blockchains), AvaCloud (managed blockchain service), Core Wallet, Avalanche Bridge (cross-chain), Avalanche Warp Messaging.
HOW THEY GREW
Avalanche grew through a combination of DeFi incentive programs (Avalanche Rush — $180 million in incentives), enterprise partnerships, and subnet technology. The subnet strategy is their differentiator: institutions can launch custom blockchains that are compliant, permissioned, and tailored to their needs — while still connected to the broader Avalanche network.
Partnerships with JPMorgan (Onyx), Deloitte, and several governments for real-world asset tokenization give Avalanche enterprise credibility that most chains lack.
THE HARD PART
The Layer 1 blockchain war is brutally competitive. Avalanche competes with Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, and dozens of other chains for developers and users.
The collapse of Three Arrows Capital (a major investor and ecosystem participant) in 2022 hurt confidence. DeFi activity on Avalanche, measured by Total Value Locked, dropped significantly from its 2021 peak.
Keeping developers building on Avalanche rather than migrating to trendier chains requires constant ecosystem investment and incentive programs.
MONEY TRAIL
Seed
2019 · Led by
$6M raised
Private Sale
2020 · Led by
$12M raised
Public Sale
2020 · Led by
$42M raised
Series B
2022 · Led by
$350M raised
WHO BACKED THEM
Polychain Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Galaxy Digital, Dragonfly Capital, Three Arrows Capital (pre-collapse), Bitmain, Initiative Capital, NGC Ventures
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