Ligero

What Ligero does

Ligero Inc. is a blockchain privacy infrastructure company founded in 2018 and headquartered in Rochester, NY, with an additional office in San Francisco. The company provides compliant private payments infrastructure for enterprises operating on public blockchains, targeting use cases including enterprise treasury, payroll, cross-border settlement, treasury operations, and AI agent micropayments. Its target customers are businesses moving money at scale on public-chain rails that require both confidentiality and regulatory compliance — segments such as enterprise treasury teams paying employees in stablecoins, CFOs managing corporate treasury positions, and enterprises executing international settlement.

Ligero's core technology is Ligetron, a WASM-based zero-knowledge virtual machine (zkVM) built on a hash-based proof system using the MPC-in-the-head paradigm and zkValidium architecture. Ligetron is engineered to generate proofs client-side on user devices with sub-second performance, requiring under 100MB of memory and supporting billions of constraints in standard browsers. According to company materials, the system is 66x faster and 1024x more memory efficient than traditional ZK systems, supports C++ and Rust without requiring developers to learn circuit languages, requires no trusted setup (a first among zkSNARKs, debuted 2017), and is post-quantum secure. On top of Ligetron, the company has built Ligero Private Payments Infrastructure with sub-products for private payroll, cross-border settlement, treasury operations, and AI agent micropayments. The platform is chain-agnostic, supporting Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Stellar, Hedera, Arbitrum, Espresso, TRON, and others, and is wallet-agnostic via WalletConnect integration reaching 700+ wallets and 55.5 million active users.

Ligero monetizes primarily through enterprise SDK/platform licensing (subscription/recurring) and transaction processing (transaction fee) models, with API pricing quoted at under 0.001 cents per call for AI agent micropayments and quote-based custom pricing for enterprise deployments. Its go-to-market combines direct enterprise sales (Contact Sales / Request Access forms) with an SDK-first developer self-serve motion and channel-partner expansion through blockchain ecosystem integrations. The company has raised approximately $5.15M across two disclosed rounds, including a $4M seed round in February 2025 led by Galaxy Ventures and 1kx, with additional backing from Founders Fund, Mesh, Nascent, and Robot Ventures. Named enterprise adopters referenced by the company include Google (early validation) and Espresso Network (using Ligero's platform for its own employee payroll).

Name

Ligero

Legal name

Ligero Inc.

Website

https://ligero-inc.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2018

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Ligero provides enterprise-grade private payments infrastructure built on its Ligetron zero-knowledge virtual machine, enabling compliant on-chain transactions for enterprise treasury, payroll, cross-border settlement, and AI agent micropayments across 10+ blockchains.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Blockchain Privacy & Zero-Knowledge Infrastructure

NAICS

Software Publishers (51321), Financial Transactions Processing, Reserve, and Clearinghouse Activities (522320)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming Services (7371), Security & Commodity Brokers, Dealers, Exchanges & Services (6200)

akta.pro primary industry

Crypto Payments & Stablecoin Settlement Platforms (BPAMAFAL)

akta.pro secondary industries

Smart Contract Frameworks & SDKs (developer kits, templates, standards) (FSAPABAB), Micropayments & Streaming Payments (Crypto) (FSADAIAM), Invoice, Billing & Subscription Payments (Crypto) (FSADAIAG)

Keywords

• Zero-knowledge proofs
• Private payments infrastructure
• Blockchain privacy SDK
• ZkVM virtual machine
• Compliant stablecoin transactions

Headquarters

HQ city

Rochester

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Platform/SDK Licensing: Enterprise customers access Ligero's private payments infrastructure and ZK proving SDK through commercial agreements. Revenue derived from licensing the Ligetron zkVM and privacy infrastructure to enterprises needing compliant on-chain payment capabilities.
2. Transaction Processing: Processing private stablecoin payments across multiple chains with cryptographic verification. Revenue likely tied to transaction volume processed through the platform.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Ligero sells enterprise-grade private payments infrastructure built on its proprietary Ligetron zero-knowledge virtual machine (zkVM). The platform enables businesses to move money on public blockchains — including stablecoin payroll, cross-border settlement, and corporate treasury — with cryptographic privacy and on-demand auditability for compliance officers. The offering is delivered through a plug-and-play SDK (ligero-prover) and a self-serve marketplace at platform.ligetron.com.

Product overview

Ligero offers a unified private payments platform built around its core Ligetron zkVM technology. The platform consists of Ligero Private Payments Infrastructure as the primary offering, with Ligetron serving as the underlying zero-knowledge proof engine that enables client-side proving. On top of this, Ligero provides specialized products including Private Payroll for employee compensation, Cross-Border Settlement for international transfers, Treasury Operations for corporate finance management, and AI Agent Micropayments for autonomous AI economies. All products leverage Ligetron's ZK proving capabilities to deliver privacy-by-default while maintaining cryptographic auditability for compliance.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Ligetron: High-performance zero-knowledge virtual machine (zkVM) enabling client-side proof generation with speed and memory efficiency advantages over competitors.
• Ligero Private Payroll
• Ligero SDK

Products and services

• Ligetron A zero-knowledge virtual machine (zkVM) enabling scalable, client-side ZK proof generation directly in browsers and mobile devices. Supports billions of constraints with 66x faster performance and 1024x memory efficiency versus competitors, and lets developers build ZK applications in standard C++ and Rust without circuit languages.
• Ligero Private Payments Infrastructure Enterprise-grade infrastructure for private, compliant on-chain transactions powered by zero-knowledge cryptography. Enables businesses to move money privately with stablecoins while maintaining regulatory compliance — privacy by default, compliant by design.
• Ligero Private Payroll Compliant, private on-chain payroll solution enabling enterprises to pay employees in stablecoins without broadcasting compensation structures. Works across EVM chains, TRON, Hedera, and Stellar with instant settlement and zero workflow friction.
• Cross-Border Settlement Instant, compliant cross-border settlement service enabling private transaction details while maintaining regulatory compliance. Supports 10+ chains including Ethereum, Polygon, and Arbitrum with near-instant finality.
• Treasury Operations Private, compliant treasury operations infrastructure for on-chain management with full auditability for boards, regulators, and auditors. Enables confidential capital deployment and cross-chain confidential transfers.
• AI Agent Micropayments High-speed, private micropayment infrastructure for autonomous AI agents enabling agent-to-agent transactions at scale with sub-cent payments and instant settlement.

Quantifiable outcome

• $2.4B processed annually through private payroll use case
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers2 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles6 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration9 records

AI capability2 records

Feature10 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered flagship.

• Espresso NetworkflagshipTechnology or Integration · 19 February 2026Ligero launched first compliant, privacy-preserving on-chain payroll pilot as Layer 2 on Espresso Network. Espresso provides fast BFT-secured finality, high-volume payment handling, and instant settlement. Espresso uses Ligero platform for its own employee payroll processing.
• Risc ZeroflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 15 October 2025Partnership to bring privacy, scalability, and verifiability to blockchain. Ligero generates proofs locally for privacy while Risc Zero provides succinctness and composability for efficient on-chain verification. Combined pipeline enables end-to-end private verifiable compute.
• MidenflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 6 October 2025Partnership to shape scalable, compliant privacy. Ligero extends support to Miden VM and integrates directly into Miden's edge blockchain stack. Joint toolkit for private payments, RWA tokenization, and compliance solutions.

Scale indicators11 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Aztec Network: Privacy-focused ZK rollup for encrypted payments and DeFi on Ethereum. Directly comparable to Ligero as a private-payments L2 with programmable compliance, targeting similar enterprise and DeFi use cases.
• Risc Zero: General-purpose zkVM enabling verifiable compute via STARKs. Directly competes with Ligetron in the developer-facing zkVM category and is both a partner (composability integration) and competitor for enterprise ZK workloads.
• Aleo: Privacy-first L1 using zero-knowledge proofs for shielded programmable applications. Comparable to Ligero in offering developer tooling for private, compliant transactions, with a stronger consumer/dev ecosystem but similar enterprise ambitions.

Broad incumbents

• Polygon (Miden / zkEVM): Polygon Miden is a STARK-based zkVM that competes head-to-head with Ligetron, while broader Polygon offers ZK scaling infrastructure and developer tooling that overlaps with Ligero's positioning. Polygon is both a partner (Miden) and a broad incumbent with massive ecosystem reach.
• StarkWare / Starknet: STARK-based ZK scaling platform for Ethereum. Overlaps with Ligero in providing ZK proving infrastructure for L2s, private payments, and DeFi, with substantially more capital and deployed applications.
• Oasis Network: Layer 1 blockchain with confidential compute via Trusted Execution Environments and ZK. Comparable to Ligero in offering privacy-preserving smart contracts, with a longer operating history but broader (less payments-specific) focus.

Emerging players

• Penumbra: Privacy-focused Cosmos chain with shielded transactions and DEX. Compares to Ligero's privacy-on-public-blockchain positioning, but more focused on DeFi rather than enterprise payroll and treasury.
• Railgun: ZK-based privacy protocol enabling private DeFi transactions on Ethereum. Smaller scope than Ligero (DeFi-only) but directly comparable as a private-on-public-blockchain solution using zero-knowledge cryptography.
• Secret Network: Privacy-preserving smart contract platform using Trusted Execution Environments. Comparable to Ligero in providing privacy for decentralized applications, though with a smaller ecosystem and different privacy mechanism (TEE vs. ZK).

Others

• Espresso Network: Decentralized sequencer and shared L2 infrastructure for rollups. Comparable as a strategic partner and ecosystem enabler; Espresso is using Ligero for payroll and provides the Layer 2 rail on which Ligero's privacy features run.

Market position

Weaknesses1 record

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/ligero_inc
• GitHubgithub.com/ligeroinc
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/ligero-inc

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds2 records

Investors10 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Ligero