Growth-driven research and development firm Flashbots is seeking to raise up from $30 million to $50 million, which will grant it the unicorn status; a company worth $1 billion or more and is not listed on the stock market. Flashbots aims to utilize the funds towards minimizing the complications surrounding centralized Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) on the Ethereum blockchain.

MEV is the maximum value which can be extracted from block production as excess from the standard block rewards and gas fees, which brings about the risk of having too much autonomy for just a few sophisticated users, taking advantage of regular users.

While Flashbots’ system was criticized last year as it was alleged to be censoring transactions related to Tornado Cash, a crypto mixing service, the funding round which is reportedly being led by crypto venture business Paradigm may envisage greater things ahead for Flashbots.

Sources:

https://www.theblock.co/post/203637/flashbots-fundraise-billion-dollar-valuation

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ethereum-development-firm-flashbots-eyes-131422615.html