Nitro Labs Secures $4 Million in Seed Funding

Nitro Labs, the team behind Termina, a Solana scaling infrastructure platform, has raised $4 million in a seed funding round.

Details of the Funding Round

The round was led by Lemniscap, with participation from Animoca Ventures, Borderless Capital, Finality Capital, Race Capital, and No Limit Holdings. Additionally, undisclosed angel investors from Solana Foundation, Jump Crypto, and Spartan joined the round.

The seed round closed this summer, structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) with a token warrant, said Yiwen Gao, founder of Nitro Labs. Gao declined to disclose the startup's valuation.

What is Termina?

Termina is an open-source platform designed to enable developers to easily deploy custom Solana rollups or SVM "network extensions", which are essentially Layer 2 networks.

Gao explained, "Layer 2 and network extensions are essentially the same, but network extension is a Solana-specific term intended to cover a broader range of solutions and end goals. Our core belief is that network extensions can provide more than just increased transaction throughput; they serve as powerful tools for experimentation, innovation, and addressing diverse needs beyond mere scaling."

Termina supports custom dApps across various use cases, including gaming, trading, and decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN).

Shaishav Todi, managing partner of Lemniscap, stated, "Termina is scaling the SVM to enhance developer engagement, accelerate blockchain deployments, and drive user growth."

Current Development Status

Currently, there are more than 20 projects building on Termina, covering both Solana-native and cross-chain projects. The platform's testnet is expected to launch later this year.

Termina is presently in its private alpha devnet phase, with the mainnet anticipated to go live next year. When asked about the potential timeline for a token launch to coincide with the mainnet, Gao indicated that no timeline has been established yet.

Nitro Labs, located in San Francisco, has fewer than 10 employees, and Gao plans to grow the team selectively.

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