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2023 hasn\u2019t been the best year for crypto companies. According to PitchBook data<\/a>, VC investments in crypto companies are down by 68% in 2023 compared to 2022. To be fair, crypto companies still raised $9.5 billion. But that\u2019s a small number compared to 2022, the year during which crypto companies raised $30 billion.<\/p>\n And yet, some startups are faring better than others. French crypto startup Kiln<\/a> just closed a $17 million funding round in December 2023. 1kx<\/a> is leading the round with Crypto.com, IOSG, Wintermute Ventures, KXVC and LBank also participating. Some existing investors also put more money in the company.<\/p>\n Even if you\u2019re familiar with the big names in the crypto space, you might not be aware of Kiln as the company has focused on white-label infrastructure-focused products. Companies like Ledger, Crypto.com and Coinbase rely on Kiln\u2019s technology for their pooled staking services in their non-custodial wallets (Coinbase Wallet, Ledger Live, etc.).<\/p>\n As a reminder, staking consists in locking crypto assets in a blockchain to secure a blockchain and its transactions. There are financial incentives when you stake assets as you earn rewards over time.<\/p>\n Several proof-of-stake blockchains let its users stake crypto assets, such as Polygon, Solana and Avalanche. But the biggest proof-of-stake blockchain by far is Ethereum, which switched to this mechanism in September 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n In this ecosystem, Kiln provides a suite of smart contracts that facilitates staking. Essentially, Kiln programmatically manages staking through these on-chain contracts. With a simple transaction, users participate in Kiln\u2019s staking pools and start earning rewards. Kiln and its partners also get a commission, which is also automatically handled by the smart contract.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s been working extremely well as the company currently manages<\/a> 1,168,288 staked ETH. At today\u2019s exchange rate, it represents nearly $3 billion in ETH assets under management. Over the past year, Kiln has increased its \u201cstake under management\u201d by 5x.<\/p>\n In addition to these on-chain products, Kiln has SDKs and APIs to facilitate integrations with its staking pools. It also operates a large network of validators. On the Ethereum blockchain, Kiln currently is the largest operator of validator nodes with a bit more than 4% of market share according to Rated data<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOperating our own validator nodes is a way to guarantee the highest level of security while optimizing for the highest financial performance. It also helps up when it comes to improving monitoring. Finally, this hands-on approach helps us appear as a legitimate company with strategic partners such as the Ethereum Foundation, which shares our best practices and anti-slashing strategy,\u201d Kiln\u2019s head of marketing Marie Siegrist told me.<\/p>\nThe largest operator of Ethereum validator nodes<\/h2>\n