Zurich-based blockchain startup Acurast, which transforms smartphones into secure compute nodes, has raised $11 million in funding, combining non-dilutive grants and token-based rounds from 2023 to 2025, including an oversubscribed public token sale on CoinList in May 2025 that raised $5.4 million.
- Founded in 2023 by Alessandro De Carli, Acurast develops a decentralized compute network that turns smartphones into verifiable, confidential compute nodes.
- The platform leverages the hardware of consumer phones to run tamper-resistant workloads within secure enclaves, ensuring that even device owners cannot access sensitive data. Each smartphone undergoes hardware-backed verification, requiring key attestation from the manufacturer to participate.
- Once verified, nodes process computations for developers’ applications, enabling censorship-resistant, distributed, and confidential execution without relying on traditional data centers.
Details of the deal
- The investors in Acurast’s funding round include Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, MN Capital founder Michael van de Poppe, GlueNet founder Ogle, Scytale Digital, Leonard Dörlochter, and Sigma Capital.
“Acurast is creating a new, user-owned compute layer that aligns perfectly with where AI is heading. Hardware verification, enclave-based confidentiality, and a massive potential footprint of smartphones combine into a defensible moat that server-centric models can’t compete with," claims Vineet Budki, CEO of Sigma Capital.
- The firm will use the fresh funding to launch its smartphone-powered confidential compute network, bringing its Genesis Mainnet live on November 17, 2025, and releasing its native $ACU token.
- The investment will support scaling the network by onboarding more smartphones as verifiable compute nodes, expanding developer deployments, enhancing tamper-resistant execution, and promoting secure, decentralized, trustless computation without relying on traditional data centers.
