Pantera Capital leads $20 million funding round into Subzero Labs as developer-friendly blockchain project leaves stealth

The Block

Aug 02, 2025 00:39:30

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Pantera Capital is leading a $20 million funding round into Subzero Labs, a startup emerging from stealth that’s building a blockchain designed for "internet‑scale decentralized applications." Other heavyweights, including Coinbase Ventures, Fabric Ventures, Mysten Labs, Susquehanna Crypto, and Varient, contributed to the round.

Its blockchain, dubbed Rialo, is "a radical rethinking of decentralized programmable networks" that offers "the responsiveness and reactivity of Web2."

"From tokenized assets, to prediction markets, to global trading platforms, to AI agent orchestration, developers can build with familiar tools while delivering apps that outperform their centralized counterparts in both cost and user experience," Subzero wrote in a statement on Friday.

According to the announcement, the system will leverage RISC-V, the instruction set architecture for smart contracts that Vitalik Buterin wants to transition Ethereum to, and the highly scalable Solana VM compatibility.

Subzero’s co-founders have experience building next-gen, scalable blockchains, having started in crypto as early engineers at Mysten Labs, building the Sui network. Both also have a background in web2: Zhang worked on Meta's blockchain initiative Diem as well as AI infrastructure at Meta and Google, while Adepoju developed distributed systems at Netflix and advanced microchips at AMD.

Their startup has apparently already attracted talent from major tech firms like Apple, Amazon, and TikTok, as well as 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 of Pantera Capital. "It’s rare to see such a high concentration of talent to drive this vision. We believe under Ade and Lu’s leadership the Subzero Labs will deliver the infrastructure that finally empowers developers to create decentralized products that are intuitive, useful, and relevant to everyday users."

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