Multichain DApp protocol Astar – previously referred to as Plasm – reportedly secured $22 million of capital injection via a recent strategic funding round. 

Specifically, the funding round was reportedly led by Polychain and witnessed Alameda Research, Crypto.com Capital, Digital Finance Group along with some angel investors taking part. 

Astar has reportedly been making a reputation for itself after successfully snatching the Polkadot parachain slot in December 2021, with an official introduction happening on January 17th. 

At the moment, Astar is reportedly investing extensive resources to achieve the goal of turning into the first protocol offering facilitating features for two virtual machines on its Polkadot parachain – The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and WebAssembly (WASM). 

While EVM is currently active, the platform reportedly has plans down its pipeline to transfer to WASM in the long run.

The Astar team is reportedly collaborating with Parity blockchain to accelerate its WASM integration. 

Functioning as a multichain protocol, Astar reportedly offers assistance to a variety of EVM and non-EVM layer-1 bridges. At the moment, two Ethereum bridges are live and a Cosmos bridge is being built.

“Interoperability is not only a buzzword but also a reality in the Polkadot ecosystem by connecting all parachains with different virtual machines together with XCM. Astar will be the only parachain supporting both virtual machines and at the same time also make them interoperable with each other.” Sota Watanabe, the founder of Astar Network, reportedly offered further details regarding the effect of two machines on one individual Polkadot parachain. 

The Astar team additionally disclosed that the freshly secured financial support will be dedicated towards onboarding extra industry-leading talents, implementing both EVM and WASM, and investing and nurturing Astar native ecosystem projects.