Pantera Capital is leading a $20 million funding round for Subzero Labs, a startup emerging from stealth that is developing a blockchain tailored for "internet‑scale decentralized applications. " Other prominent investors, including Coinbase Ventures, Fabric Ventures, Mysten Labs, Susquehanna Crypto, and Varient, also participated in the round. Their blockchain, named Rialo, represents "a radical rethinking of decentralized programmable networks, " providing "the responsiveness and reactivity of Web2. " "From tokenized assets and prediction markets to global trading platforms and AI agent orchestration, developers can use familiar tools to build applications that outperform centralized alternatives in both cost efficiency and user experience, " Subzero stated on Friday. Per the announcement, the platform will utilize RISC-V, an instruction set architecture for smart contracts that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed transitioning Ethereum toward, alongside compatibility with the highly scalable Solana virtual machine. Subzero’s co-founders bring experience in building next-generation scalable blockchains, having begun their crypto careers as early engineers at Mysten Labs where they contributed to the Sui network. Both also have backgrounds in Web2: Zhang previously worked on Meta's blockchain initiative Diem and AI infrastructure at Meta and Google, while Adepoju developed distributed systems at Netflix and worked on advanced microchips at AMD. The startup has already attracted talent from major tech companies such as Apple, Amazon, and TikTok, as well as from crypto ecosystems including Polkadot and NEAR. "Rialo is the only full-stack network for real-world applications—built by leading industry developers for developers, " said Paul Veradittakit, managing partner at Pantera Capital. "It’s rare to see such a high concentration of talent driving this vision. Under Ade and Lu’s leadership, we believe Subzero Labs will deliver the infrastructure that finally enables developers to create decentralized products that are intuitive, useful, and relevant to everyday users. " Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet delivering news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is the majority investor in The Block and invests in other crypto companies.

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