Intent-Based Blockchain Essential Secures $11M Series A Led by Archetype

Essential has secured $11 million in Series A funding to advance its declarative, intent-based blockchain.

According to a press release published by the Ethereum layer-2 network on Tuesday, the funding round was led by Archetype, with participation from several prominent investors including IOSG, Spartan, Mirana, Amber Group, Maven 11, and Bodhi Ventures.

We’re excited to share that Essential has closed an $11M Series A funding round led by @archetypevc. 🎉

This milestone brings us closer to redesigning blockchain interactions for web3's transition to a declarative, intent-based future.

A big thank you to our investors for… pic.twitter.com/yMnQe6gVbh

— Essential (@intentessential) August 13, 2024

The company also received investments from founders and angel investors from Celestia, Hashflow, Enso, Barter, LI.FI, Astaria, GlueX, Bebop, and Sorella among others.

First Decorative, Intent-Based Network

The announcement indicated that Essential is developing the first declarative, intent-centric blockchain to transform how decentralized applications work.

Unlike traditional blockchains that execute specific instructions, Essential will focus on achieving outcomes without on-chain execution to improve scalability and efficiency.

The declarative model prioritizes outcome-based interactions. The release stated that this approach would reduce the need for constant on-chain computation, addressing issues like failed transactions and high slippage by ensuring only valid outcomes are processed.

“By enabling consensus on state updates without requiring on-chain execution, Essential will empower developers to build much more sophisticated and scalable applications than what is currently possible on virtual machine-based chains with traditional gas metering,” said Archetype partner Dmitriy Berenzon.

“We are incredibly excited to work alongside Liesl, Simon, and the entire Essential team as they design a chain from first principles with intents as the core primitive and design pattern,” said Berenzon.

Essential Introduces Blockchain Programming Language

The company also introduced Pint, a constraint-based programming language tailored for its blockchain.

here's the scoop on @intentessential ; it has two components, declarative execution environment (essentialvm) & constraint driven language (pint)

pint contracts are composed of a storage block & a series of predicates; storage represents persistent state as we're used to in… pic.twitter.com/VQrQbUh70Q

— jtriley.eth (@jtriley_eth) July 24, 2024

Based on the release’s introduction, Pint allows developers to define and control states directly on the Essential blockchain, enabling the creation of scalable and secure applications. Essential has launched a pre-alpha devnet to let developers experiment with this new technology.

“The concept of an executionless blockchain design is now a practical reality that developers can begin working with today,” the release reads.