Initia raises $14 million Series A at $350 million token valuation

Initia, a blockchain project developing a Layer 1 network and a system for "interwoven optimistic rollups," has raised $14 million in a Series A funding round.

Tomasz Tunguz's Theory Ventures led the round, with Delphi Ventures and Hack VC participating, Initia said Wednesday. Angel investors such as Keone Hon of Monad Labs, Bryan Pellegrino of LayerZero Labs, Zaki Manion of Sommelier Finance, Jordi Alexander of Selini Capital and Michael Egorov of Curve Finance also joined the round.

Initia began raising funds for the Series A round earlier this year and closed the round in June, co-founder Ezaan Mangalji, who goes by "Zon," told The Block. The round was structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) with token warrants, bringing Initia's fully diluted token valuation to $350 million, Zon said. He added that this is Theory Ventures' first equity and token investment in web3, noting that the firm has also backed projects like Arbitrum developer Offchain Labs and Sui developer Mysten Labs.

The Series A round brings Initia's total funding to $22.5 million, which includes a $7.5 million seed round earlier this year and a pre-seed investment from Binance Labs last October.

What is Initia?

Initia is developing two main products: a Layer 1 blockchain and a platform for interwoven optimistic rollups.

"We are holistically building a new multi-chain world across the architecture, product and economic stacks using the Initia L1 and an interwoven system of L2s," Zon said. "Through designing an L1 in tandem to a network of interconnected L2s, Initia has built a system designed for a rollup-centric future."

Rollups on Initia's interwoven stack, called Minitias, are Cosmos SDK chains that support Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), Move Virtual Machine (MoveVM) and CosmWasm's WebAssembly Virtual Machine (WasmVM). This allows teams to customize how their chain processes and orders transactions within the Cosmos SDK, Initia said.

Currently, 12 projects are using Initia's interwoven stack to build their Layer 2 networks. These projects have collectively raised over $13 million in funding, including MilkyWay, Blackwing and Civitia, Initia said.

Initia's mainnet and token launch schedule

Initia's public testnet, dubbed The Initiation, concluded last month with over 125 million transactions and nearly 3 million unique wallets, according to the project. The mainnet and token launch are expected within the next two months.

Currently, about 40 people are working for Initia, and Zon plans to expand the team in marketing, business development and developer relations functions.

Last month, Initia acquired blockchain explorer Celatone and its team, Alles Labs. Celatone supports multiple blockchains, including Sei, Osmosis and Neutron, and is set to support Initia and all Layer 2 networks on Initia's interwoven stack.

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