Former Meta executives raise $300 million to ‘accelerate adoption’ of Sui blockchain

by · September 8, 2022

Mysten Labs, the company behind the yet-to-be-launched layer-1 blockchain Sui has raised $300 million to build core infrastructure and accelerate adoption of the Sui blockchain ecosystem.

The blockchain company, which was founded by former executives of social media giant Meta in 2021, said in an announcement on September 8 that it landed $300 million in a Series B funding round led by crypto exchange venture arm FTX Ventures.

Other Series B investors included Coinbase Ventures, Jump Crypto, Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z, Circle Ventures, Binance Labs and O’Leary Ventures, among other investment funds and partners, with the new capital valuing the company at over $2 billion.

In addition to equity, investors will receive warrants for native tokens to be traded on the future blockchain.

Mysten is the creator of the Sui blockchain, a proof-of-stake layer-1 blockchain that uses a feature called “transaction parallelization” to achieve high-throughput, low-latency transactions and low transaction fees, which could give existing blockchains like Ethereum and Solana a run for their money the money.

Mysten co-founder and CEO Evan Cheng said the new funding will be used to build the technology, the company’s hiring efforts and expansion into the Asia-Pacific region.

“This new funding will enable Mysten to continue to scale Sui, and we are grateful for the support of blue-chip investors and strategic partners who are aligned with our mission.”

Cheng suggested that current Web3 infrastructure “is in the dial-up era,” noting:

“It’s slow, expensive, limited capacity, uncertain and just plain hard to build for.”

The latest funding suggests some venture capital investors remain unphased by the crypto bear market. A recent report from Messari revealed that $30.3 billion in funds were invested by VC firms in the first six months of this year, surpassing the entire fundraising year of 2021.

Related: VCs Pour $14.2B into Crypto in H1 2022, But Investments Now Slowing

Last December, Mysten Labs raised $36 million in Series A funding, led by a16z.

The company was founded in September 2021 by former cryptographic software engineers behind Meta’s crypto-payment platform Diem and mobile wallet Novi. Mysten Labs is led by CEO Evan Chang, CTO Sam Blackshear, CPO Adeniyi Abiodun and Chief Scientist George Danezis.