Ex-Meta Executive Launches New Bitcoin Payments Startup
David Marcus Launches Lightspark
In a Twitter thread, Marcus announced that he is starting a new company called Lightspark, a crypto payments system designed to make Bitcoin transactions faster and cheaper.
Marcus raised roughly $175 million in venture capital funding for the new company, according to Bloomberg.
VC firms Andreessen Horowitz and Paradigm are co-leading the round with participation from Thrive Capital, Coatue, Felix Capital, Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners and Zeev Ventures.
“I wanted to share that we are starting a new company called Lightspark to explore, build and extend the capabilities and utility of Bitcoin. As a first step, we’re actively assembling a team to dive deeper into the Lightning Network,” said Marcus in a tweet.
Other Ex-Meta Employees Also Part of the Team
In addition to Marcus, other members of the team include James Everingham, who was previously a vice president of engineering at Facebook’s Novi.
Christian Catalini, who built Diem with Marcus, will be charged with leading the company's economic and strategy efforts while Robinhood's former chief marketing and communications officer Christina Smedley will lead comms for Lightspark.
Marcus is credited with co-creating the stablecoin project Diem, formerly known as Libra, previously served as president of PayPal. Diem ultimately closed down last year amid regulatory pressure with its assets later sold to Silvergate in January.