Celer Network
also invests Β· investor profileSingapore, SG Β· Founded 2018 Β· 17 employees on LinkedIn Β· 8 known investors
Celer is a blockchain interoperability protocol that enables decentralized applications to access tokens, DeFi products, NFTs, and governance across multiple blockchains through a simplified user experience. The platform serves developers building cross-chain applications and end-users of dApps seeking multi-chain asset access.
Also known as Celer Β· CELR
Founders & leadership
Celer Network was founded in 2018 by Junda Liu and Xiaozhou Li.
Investors Β· 8
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Celer Network is a blockchain interoperability protocol that lets decentralized applications and their users access tokens, DeFi, GameFi, NFTs and governance across multiple chains from a single transaction flow. Its core developer product is the Celer Inter-chain Messaging framework (Celer IM), which pairs MessageBus smart contracts deployed on supported chains with the State Guardian Network (SGN), a Tendermint-based proof-of-stake relayer blockchain, so that developers can build inter-chain-native dApps with shared state and coherent application logic instead of deploying isolated contract copies on each chain. Use cases cited by the company include cross-chain swaps, yield farming, token and NFT bridging, cross-chain governance, collateralization and fee aggregation.
The company's consumer-facing product is cBridge, a decentralized, non-custodial asset bridge built on top of Celer IM that supports token transfers across more than 40 blockchains and layer-2 rollups. Celer's earlier documentation describes the project as a layer-2 scaling platform for fast, low-cost off-chain transactions for crypto payments and smart contract execution, based on a state channel network (CelerPay/CelerApp) with the SGN acting as a channel guardian for off-chain state availability. More recent work extends this lineage into AgentPay, a state-channel payment network aimed at real-time, low-fee payments between AI agents, and Celer Intent, an omnichain liquidity protocol for cross-chain value transfer.
CELR is the protocol token: it is staked in the SGN to provide economic security (with slashing for malicious or malfunctioning validators), used to pay message-routing fees to validators and their delegators, distributed as block rewards, and used for governance over protocol parameters such as supported chains and tokens and fee configurations.
Founding story
Third-party coverage names Dr. Mo Dong and Dr. Junda Liu as founders of Celer Network, describing Mo Dong as holding a computer science PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with prior work at Princeton University and VMware, and Junda Liu as a computer science PhD from UCLA with prior work at IBM Research and NEC Labs.
Business model
Celer operates protocol infrastructure rather than a conventional software product line: users and dApps pay fees for message routing and cross-chain transfers, which accrue to State Guardian Network validators and their CELR stake delegators, alongside block rewards issued by the SGN. Developer-facing SDKs for Celer IM and cBridge are offered to attract application integrations.
Fees are paid by users and dApps to SGN validators and stake delegators for routing messages and cross-chain transfers; the SGN additionally issues block rewards in CELR to block-producing validators.
Traction
The company reports that cBridge has processed more than $14B in cross-chain asset transfer volume for over 540,000 unique users across 40+ blockchains and layer-2 rollups. The GitHub organization hosts around 110 public repositories with continued commit activity, and the blog documents a steady cadence of chain integrations and partnerships from 2019 through 2025-2026.
Latest developments
In June 2025 Celer introduced Celer Intent, an omnichain liquidity protocol for cross-chain value transfer, and in November 2025 launched AgentPay, a state-channel payment network for AI agents targeting millisecond settlement and low fees; a follow-up post reports thousands of paid agent calls over a single open channel. cBridge support was extended to Redbelly (August 2025), Unichain and Base (August 2025), and Velora (October 2025), and Celer partnered with Oasys for MUSHI token bridging (October 2025) and with CoinMarketCap to bridge tokens for the CMC20 index DTF launch (November 2025).
βΈFull profile β market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Celer positions itself in the cross-chain interoperability and bridging segment, with cBridge cited as covering 40+ blockchains and layer-2 rollups. Third-party coverage lists it alongside other bridge providers such as deBridge, Stargate and Meson as bridge partners, and compares it with layer-2 and scaling companies including Optimism, StarkWare, Aztec and Connext.
Rather than requiring developers to deploy and maintain isolated contract copies per chain, Celer IM offers a single messaging layer with shared state and pooled liquidity, and gives applications a configurable security choice between immediate PoS-secured routing and an optimistic delay-plus-watchtower model that limits exposure even if all guardians act maliciously.
Technology
The stack combines on-chain MessageBus contracts deployed across supported chains with the State Guardian Network, a Tendermint-based proof-of-stake blockchain that validates messages and produces stake-weighted multi-signature attestations relayed to destination chains by Executors. Applications can choose between the default PoS security model with no added delay and an optimistic-rollup-like model that injects a delay buffer and allows an independent watchtower service to double-validate messages before execution. Earlier architecture components documented as CelerCore include CelerPay on-chain contracts and off-chain protocol, the CelerApp framework, state channel liquidity backing, and the SGN acting as a channel guardian. Public repositories cover SGN V2 and cBridge V2 contracts, SGN network binaries and configuration, CosmWasm contracts for cBridge, Layer2.Finance contracts, Celer Intent RFQ contracts, and AgentPay contracts and clients.
Go-to-market
Distribution is driven by integrations and partnerships: cBridge and Celer IM support is launched chain by chain (including Scroll, Linea, Manta Pacific, Oasis Sapphire, Blast, Sui, Aura Network, Gravity, X Layer, Redbelly, Unichain and Base), and application partners such as AltLayer, Bedrock, illumineX, Xterio, Oasys and Velora integrate the messaging framework. Developer SDKs, documentation, hackathon participation and bug bounty programs (including on Immunefi) support adoption.
Developers building inter-chain-native decentralized applications and bridges, blockchain networks and layer-2s seeking bridging support, and end users of Celer-enabled dApps transferring assets across chains; recent AgentPay work targets AI agents making machine-to-machine payments.
Geography
Headquartered in the Central Region of Singapore, with employees reported across Asia and North America.
History
Public materials date the company to 2018, with copyright notices on the website running from 2018. Early activity centered on state channel scaling: a mainnet launch event in 2019, a unified Ethereum state channel specification initiative in 2019, and the CelerX real-money eSports gaming app. The State Guardian Network launched on mainnet in November 2020, followed by the layer2.finance DeFi aggregator in 2021 and the Celer Inter-chain Messaging framework in January 2022. Subsequent years focused on expanding cBridge and Celer IM to additional chains, then on Celer Intent (June 2025) and AgentPay (November 2025).
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources β announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed β not independently audited.
Competitors Β· 10
by search overlap
Companies competing with Celer Network for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline Β· 16
launches, deals, and filingsCeler partnered with CoinMarketCap to bridge multiple tokens for the launch of the CMC20 index DTF.
Celer introduced AgentPay, a state-channel payment network enabling AI agents to transact with millisecond settlement and low costs.
Celer partnered with Oasys to enable MUSHI token bridging from Oasys Hub to Ethereum using cBridge.
Celer integrated its cBridge cross-chain protocol with Redbelly Network, a compliance-focused layer-1 built for tokenized real-world assets.
Celer announced Celer Intent, a redesigned omnichain liquidity protocol for instant and secure cross-chain value transfer.
Celer introduced Celer IM, allowing developers to build inter-chain-native dApps with shared state and pooled liquidity.
Celer announced the mainnet launch of the State Guardian Network, its Tendermint-based proof-of-stake network.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
βΈResearch sources Β· 8
primary sources listed
- Celer Networkceler.network Β· web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Celer Network do?
- Celer Network is a blockchain interoperability protocol offering cross-chain messaging, the cBridge asset bridge and state-channel payments.
- Who founded Celer Network?
- Celer Network was founded by Junda Liu, Xiaozhou Li in 2018.
- Who are Celer Network's investors?
- Celer Network's investors include Continue Capital, Fenbushi Capital, IOSG Ventures, Pantera Capital, Signum Capital, Spark Digital Capital, WolfEdge Capital, ZMT Capital.
- Where is Celer Network headquartered?
- Celer Network is headquartered in Singapore, SG.