Initia Emerges from Stealth Mode with Pre-Seed Funding from Binance Labs

Initia, a network designed for highly interconnected modular rollups, has come out of stealth mode with a significant pre-seed investment from Binance Labs, the venture capital and incubation arm of Binance.

Initia’s platform, built on Cosmos (ATOM) as a Layer 1 (L1) network, combines application-specific Layer 2s (L2) using Optimistic rollups to give developers a better way to create scalable and autonomous multi-chain systems.

The funds obtained through the investment will go towards bolstering the growth of Initia’s infrastructure, enhance its product tools, and support the incubation of key application layer projects, the team said.

The exact amount of the investment has not been disclosed.

The news of the investment was announced in a blog post by Binance on Thursday, and shared by Initia on X the same day:

Stepping out of the shadows and dipping our toes in the sun 🌞

After months of hard work in stealth, Initia is ready to leak some details and reveal our early partnership and pre-seed round with Binance Labs.

Introducing Initia: A network for 0-to-1 rollups https://t.co/9aErwBqXTL pic.twitter.com/4UeZ7CBS7X

— Initia 🪢 (@initiaFDN) October 12, 2023

According to Initia, the platform’s architecture, encompassing L1, L2, and communication layers, empowers developers to easily launch application-specific blockchains as Initia L2s, without requiring an in-depth understanding of complex blockchain infrastructure or validator sets.

The approach enables teams to develop their own economic systems and user experiences, incorporating features like native stablecoins, multi-chain bridging, gas-free transactions, and account abstraction, the team said in its announcement.

Yi He, Co-Founder of Binance and Head of Binance Labs, expressed Binance Labs’ commitment to a forward-thinking infrastructure that enables Web2 developers to easily transition to Web3.

“Initia’s innovative architecture and tooling is a step forward towards widespread adoption among a new wave of developers,” he said.

Experienced team

The team behind Initia is made up of crypto native founders and researchers with a track record of building decentralized applications (dapps) with billions of dollars in total value locked (TVL) within the Cosmos and Ethereum ecosystems.

Initia has already formed partnerships with several projects, including companies within the Binance Labs portfolio and leading mobile game publishers worldwide.

In a comment, Stan Liu, core contributor of Initia, said the investment shows Binance’s will to align the interests of different blockchain users.

“In collaboration with Binance Labs, Initia aims to underpin an interconnected ecosystem of applications, while simultaneously aligning the economic interests of all L1/2 users and operators,” Liu said.