Ava Labs, the lead developer of the Avalanche blockchain, is in the process of raising a $350M funding round.

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Bloomberg first reported the new funding on Thursday, citing people familiar with the discussions. The company, founded and helmed by Cornell University professor Emin Gun Sirer is raising $350 million at a $5.25 billion valuation.

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Similar to several other blockchains, Avalanche is a direct competitor to Ethereum, the leading blockchain for running smart contracts. Avalanche aims to change this by offering Ethereum developers faster execution speeds and lower transaction costs.

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The price of Avalanche’s native token, AVAX, reacted positively to the news and shot up in price. Shortly after the announcement, its price climbed around 5% to reach nearly $81. However, at the time of writing, AVAX is down 2.1%, trading at $77.96 per coin.

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