Monad Labs reportedly in talks with Paradigm to raise $200m for ‘Ethereum killer’

New York City-headquartered blockchain startup Monad Labs is seeking $200 million to build the scalable smart contract distributed ledger.

Monad Labs, a blockchain startup founded by former Jump Trading staff, is reportedly aiming to secure $200 million in funding and is already in talks with crypto venture firm Paradigm, which has indicated its intention to lead the funding round with a commitment of $150 million, Fortune has learned, citing sources familiar with the matter. While other investors are also being approached, their identities have not been disclosed.

At the time of writing, Monad Labs has not made any public statements regarding the fundraising efforts.

Launched in 2023, Monad is an Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible blockchain utilizing the proof-of-chain consensus mechanism, capable of processing up to 10,000 transactions per second. In a seed funding round in February 2023, the startup raised $19 million, with Dragonfly Capital leading the investment and numerous other investors participating, such as Finality Capital, Placeholder Capital, Shima Capital, and Lemniscap.

If successful, the $200 million funding round would mark one of the largest deals in the blockchain industry for 2024, comparable to Islamic Coin, a Shariah-compliant crypto asset based in Switzerland, which secured $200 million from ABO Digital in 2023, according to data from Crunchbase.

For its blockchain, Monad Labs also appears to be working on its native token, dubbed mon, according to technical documents unveiled in September 2023. Although subsequent mentions of the token were removed, it is understood that the token will be utilized within the blockchain ecosystem for transaction payments.