Key Highlights
- Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL) has raised more than $25 million in the seed funding round.
- This funding round is led by Paradigm, a16z crypto, Winklevoss Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Cypherpunk Technologies, and others.
- The native wallet was rebranded to Zodl under ZODL, which processed $600 million in ZEC transactions in 2025
On March 9, Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL), the independent company developed by the former Electric Coin Company (ECC), announced that the company raised over $25 million in the seed funding round.
According to the official announcement, the company revealed that the funding round has witnessed participation from popular investors, including Paradigm, a16z crypto, Winklevoss Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Cypherpunk Technologies, Maelstrom, Chapter One, Balaji Srinivasan, David Friedberg, Haseeb Qureshi, James Nicholas, and others.
The company is led by former Electric Coin Company CEO Josh Swihart. The newly formed Zcash Open Development Lab, or ZODL, now holds the intellectual property and development reins for Zcash’s flagship wallet.
ZODL to Use Fresh Capital to Bring Shielded ZEC to Zcash Ecosystem
The app, which is formerly known as Zashi, has been renamed to Zodl. This new beginning will allow the team the freedom to boost protocol growth and ZEC adoption without relying on the Zcash Development Fund.
Amid the rise of privacy coins, the Zodl wallet has grabbed headlines. It has facilitated more than $600 million in ZEC transactions. It has also played a pivotal role in expanding the Orchard shielded pool from approximately 1 million ZEC to 4 million ZEC over the course of 2025.
This rise of Zcash is coming from its ability to optionally shielded transactions powered by zk-SNARKs, which is a popular network that remains the leading privacy-focused cryptocurrency.
The momentum has also attracted an impressive stash of capital.
The fresh capital will help the company with wallet scaling and boost interoperability of its ecosystem.
Cypherpunk Technologies has invested $5 million, which is its first investment outside its ZEC treasury holdings.
Will McEvoy, Chief Investment Officer of Cypherpunk, stated in the press release, “ZODL and Cypherpunk are the two most important companies in privacy. We’re excited to embark together on this mission of accelerating technology that defends self-sovereignty and secures human freedom.”
Josh Swihart, CEO of ZODL, stated in the post on X, “This funding allows us to bring these ambitions to life, without relying on Zcash dev fund grants to get there. I’m grateful for these investors who are partnering with us. These are exciting days for the ZODL team and Zcash more broadly.”
“Now is the time to build on that momentum and accelerate. In addition to Zodl, we are building Zallet, a full node wallet that will also underpin new desktop software. Ultimately, we intend to deliver a private, decentralized financial system as an alternative to legacy institutions,” he said.
The fresh investment is coming during the healthy activity across the Zcash ecosystem. Winklevoss twins donated 3,221 ZEC (approximately $1.18 million) to Shielded Labs for independent protocol work on security and scalability.
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss stated, “As ZODL makes Zcash easier to use, we expect adoption of the protocol to grow alongside demand for ZEC.”
Apart from this, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also declared its contribution to the Crosslink upgrade. This upgrade is expected to enhance transaction finality on a persistent incentivized testnet.
