Empiric Network, a decentralized oracle network based on StarkNet’s layer two scaling solution, has raised $7 million in a seed funding round.

It was led by Variant and included data partners Alameda, CMT Digital, Flow Traders, FTX and Gemini, the StarkNet team behind StarkWare, and a host of other companies and angels.

Empiric noted that blockchain oracles are required to provide smart contracts with external data. Traditional oracles are centralized and use an independent infrastructure that produces the final result with no possibility of validation. As a result, errors are possible, as in the case of Pyth in September 2021, when the platform oracle based on Solana drops abnormally in the price of bitcoin to $5402 – about 90%.

“For blockchains to live up to expectations, it is necessary to create trusted oracles that will be decentralized and transparent, and ultimately secure like smart contracts. To do this, we need to move the oracles on the chain, which until recently were very expensive,” he says.

The use of StarkNet based on ZK-Rollup technology made it possible to place oracles completely on the blockchain, which reduced the transaction cost by “3-4 orders of magnitude” and made it possible to perform calculations on the network. .

The project draws data from major industry players, many of whom participate in funding rounds. According to the team, anyone can check the gauges at any point. The empirical product is expected to expand channels of information beyond price feeds to include, for example, measures of risk, volatility and return.

The venture’s co-founder, Karl Oskar Schultz, told CoinDesk that the funds received at Empiric will mainly be used to recruit new employees.

Recall that in May, StarkWare raised $100 million at a valuation of $8 billion. The project also developed another L2 solution, StarkEx.

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