Solana scaling infrastructure developer Nitro Labs raises $4 million in seed funding
2024-10-31

Nitro Labs, the team behind Termina, a Solana scaling infrastructure platform, has raised $4 million in a seed funding round.
The round was led by Lemniscap, with participation from Animoca Ventures, Borderless Capital, Finality Capital, Race Capital and No Limit Holdings, Nitro Labs said Wednesday. 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, Yiwen Gao, founder of Nitro Labs, told The Block. Gao declined to disclose the startup's valuation.
What is Nitro Labs' Termina?
Termina is an open-source platform that aims to enable developers to easily deploy custom Solana rollups or SVM "network extensions," essentially Layer 2 networks.
"Layer 2 and network extensions are essentially the same," Gao said. "The main thing is that network extension is a Solana-specific term and is supposed to encompass a wider range of solutions and end goals than Layer 2. Our core belief is that network extensions can offer more than just increased transaction throughput. They're powerful tools for experimentation, innovation and meeting diverse needs beyond simple scaling."
Termina aims to support custom dapps across various use cases, including gaming, trading and decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN).
"Termina is scaling the SVM to enhance developer engagement, accelerate blockchain deployments and drive user growth," Shaishav Todi, managing partner of Lemniscap, said in a statement.
More than 20 projects are currently building on Termina, spanning both Solana-native and cross-chain projects, Nitro Labs said. The platform's testnet is expected to launch later this year.
Currently, Termina is in its private alpha devnet phase, with its mainnet anticipated to go live next year. When asked if Termina's token will launch alongside the mainnet, Gao shared that no timeline has been set yet for a token launch.
Nitro Labs, based in San Francisco, has fewer than 10 employees, and Gao plans to grow the team selectively.
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