Kitty, Lasha, & Oleks on behalf of the Rarimo community

Rarimo has raised $2.5 million in a Vision Round exclusively for founders. This fundraise was designed to unite leaders in the space around Rarimo’s Vision for the future of digital identity.

Investors include:

• Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum Co-Founder

• Nick White, Celestia Co-Founder

• Brian Retford, RiscZero Co-Founder

• Stefan George, Gnosis Co-Founder

• Alex Pruden, Aleo Co-Founder

• Keone Hon, Monad Co-Founder

• Zac Williamson, Aztec Co-Founder

• Arnaud Schenk, Aztec, Co-Founder

• Ariel Gabizon, Aztec Chief Scientists, ex-Zcash contributor

• Liam Eagan, Alpen Labs Founder

• Daniel Lubarov, Polygon Zero, Co-Founder

• Pavel Kravchenko, Distributed Lab, Co-Founder

Rarimo’s Vision: Total Decentralization

Web3 is at an inflection point. ZK SNARKS have reached maturity and on-chain identity is no longer a far-off dream, but becoming a reality. Foundations are being laid that will determine the direction of the space for years to come.

It is urgent that as an industry we cement total decentralization into these foundations. This is the only way to guarantee privacy and user ownership. Centralized components always come with the risk of hacks, censorship, collusion, bans, regulatory pressure, corporate exploitation, and more. Telegram, the capture of Pavel Durov, and his capitulation to the French government, should be a cautionary tale to us all.

This year, when dissidents in Russia used Rarimo’s surveillance-free voting solution Freedom Tool to protest Putin, the Kremlin was unable to hack, censor or ban it. Why? Because there was no centralized target they could take down; no intermediate companies, no third party-issuers, no MPCs or TEE, and no specialized hardware that needed licensing.

Instead, citizens used their mobile phones to locally store their passport data, permissionlessly self-issue their own identities, and anonymously generate ZKPs that proved their eligibility to vote. This level of total decentralization is unique to Rarimo’s core identity infrastructure: the ZK identity registry.

Freedom Tool highlights that decentralized identity is the difference between empowerment and oppression, censorship and expression, privacy and surveillance, but its importance is not limited to voting or fighting dictators. Decentralized identity can transform all online co-ordination and communication.

Rarimo’s ZK identity registries can support almost any identity type, and consequently any kind of application. Freedom Tool used passports, but most recently, private, fully decentralized social graphs have launched on Rarimo, and already three teams are using them to build novel social media platforms.

In Q1 2025, Rarimo will migrate as a roll-up on Ethereum, making its ZK identity registries infinitely more accessible.

For now, one of the easiest ways to start building a Rarimo backed identity is to download and set up a profile on RariMe. This self-custody identity wallet lets you privately store your passport data and generate ZKPs verifying your age, citizenship, and humanity. By setting up a profile, you will automatically reserve RMO tokens.

For decentralized identity to become the default, however, it will take a village, and so, we invited the founders of leading chains and ZK protocols to become stakeholders in Rarimo’s vision.

‘I share the Rarimo team's passion for improving and protecting freedom and democracy in post-Soviet countries and beyond. I recognize the dual need to protect privacy against oppressive government and hackers, and at the same time allow participants in discussions to trust each other. Free speech must be neither squashed by a boot, nor drowned out in noise. The ZK identity approach is a promising strategy to achieve both goals at the same time.

Rarimo's identity model of ZK-wrapping existing proof-of-personhood methods and building applications on top, allowing users to prove important facts about who they are without fully disclosing their identity, is a promising strategy to achieve both goals at the same time’ - Vitalik Buterin

We, the Rarimo Community, want to thank these investors for their faith and support, the contributors who helped build and promote Rarimo, and, of course, the users. Many of them took great risks experimenting with these new forms of digital identity. We will honour that trust.