Major VC funding of $25M secured by Zcash developers following ECC departure
Just two months following their departure from Electric Coin Company, the development team behind Zcash Open Development Lab has successfully obtained $25 million in funding from prominent venture capital firms to advance their work on the privacy-centric Zodl wallet platform.
Following their January departure from Electric Coin Company to establish Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL), the development team has successfully secured more than $25 million in investment capital from prominent backers including a16z Crypto and Coinbase Ventures, enabling them to advance development of their privacy-oriented, self-custodial Zodl wallet solution.
Josh Swihart, who previously served as CEO at ECC, founded ZODL and brought along the complete engineering and product development team that had been responsible for building the Zodl wallet during their tenure at ECC. The mass resignation occurred following disagreements with Bootstrap, the nonprofit organization responsible for overseeing ECC, regarding the fundamental direction of Zcash as a privacy-preserving protocol.
In a Monday announcement posted on X, ZODL revealed that the $25 million funding round attracted participation from several cryptocurrency-focused investment firms, including Paradigm, Winklevoss Capital, Cypherpunk Technologies, Maelstrom, and Chapter One.
The funding round also saw contributions from Balaji Srinivasan, who previously held the position of chief technology officer at Coinbase, alongside Silicon Valley investor David Friedberg and Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi.
According to ZODL, the broad-based support from investors "reflects strong conviction from some of the most respected investors in crypto, not only in privacy as a principle, but in the continued growth of the Zcash ecosystem," with the company stating it plans to utilize the capital to grow its engineering team.
The Zodl wallet, developed as an open-source solution, serves as a critical piece of infrastructure supporting the broader Zcash ecosystem.
Originally developed and released by ECC when Swihart was at the helm, the Zodl wallet was first known as Zashi before being rebranded to Zodl wallet by ZODL in February.
Zcash jumps nearly 10% over 24 hours
Among privacy-focused tokens last year, Zcash (ZEC) stood out as a strong performer, experiencing an almost tenfold increase from $55.86 to reach $527.84 as market participants showed renewed enthusiasm for privacy-focused blockchain protocols.
Although ZEC has felt the effects of the wider cryptocurrency market downturn at the beginning of 2026, the token posted a 4.1% gain to reach $217.80 following the announcement of the recent funding round, according to CoinGecko data.
According to ZODL's disclosure, the Zodl wallet has processed over $600 million worth of ZEC swaps beginning in October 2025, and the company highlighted that the Zcash shielded pool has experienced growth exceeding 400% since being introduced in 2024.
Serving as the protocol's primary privacy feature, the Zcash shielded pool operates by mixing transactions together, ensuring that information about the sender, receiver and transaction amount stays hidden and cannot be traced.