Igloo, Inc, the dad or mum firm of standard NFT model Pudgy Penguins, has raised over $11 million in funding to develop a brand new Ethereum layer-2 scaling community referred to as Summary, the corporate introduced Tuesday.

The funding spherical was led by Founders Fund, with further investments from Fenbushi Capital, 1kx, Everest Ventures Group, and Selini Capital.

Igloo will use the funds to ascertain Dice Labs, a brand new enterprise that may oversee the event of Summary, an Ethereum layer-2 community. In June, Igloo introduced the acquisition of Body, an NFT-centric layer-2 community, with plans to have that crew contribute to Summary.

“While building Pudgy Penguins, we’ve come to the unfortunate truth that current L2s are not built for the consumer crypto revolution,” Igloo Inc. CEO Luca Netz tweeted final month. “This acquisition allows us to address these challenges head-on and create an ecosystem that supports and enhances the consumer crypto experience.”

Igloo Inc. says that Summary, which is able to quickly launch its testnet, is designed to make constructing decentralized apps (dapps) simpler, cheaper, and safer utilizing zero-knowledge cryptography.

“Our vision is to change the dynamic of how users interact with blockchain technology and easily merge both the real and digital worlds,” said Netz, in a release.

Pudgy Penguins was launched within the coronary heart of the 2021 NFT bull run, however the authentic crew misplaced group help within the months that adopted.

Netz and team acquired the project IP in 2022 and rebuilt it into a consumer brand, including with toys that launched last year and have expanded into retailers like Walmart and Target. Now, Pudgy Penguins is one of the most valuable NFT projects around, with its original Ethereum profile pictures (PFPs) starting at a price higher than the Bored Ape Yacht Club.

Editor’s note: This article was written with the assistance of AI. Edited and fact-checked by Andrew Hayward.