Neutron, a cross-chain smart contract platform focused on interchain security within the Cosmos ecosystem, has raised $10 million in a funding round led by Binance Labs and CoinFund.
Other notable participants in the funding round include Delphi Ventures, LongHash, and Nomad.
The funding will be used to advance the development and growth of Neutron’s blockchain software and support the expansion of its ecosystem.
Binance expressed its intention to create an environment that attracts a wider community of developers and projects, with the goal of fostering innovation, security, and user-friendly decentralized applications (DApps).
Yibo Ling, Binance’s Chief Business Officer, emphasized the significance of Neutron’s engineering capabilities and tech stack in providing an innovative solution for essential infrastructure that can benefit a broad group of developers on the Cosmos Hub.
The Cosmos ecosystem’s interchain security feature, Replicated Security (RS), enables Neutron to enable secure applications in a cost-effective manner by allowing consumer chains to tap into the validators of the Cosmos Hub.
Neutron stands out for its interoperability across the 51 blockchains that form part of the Cosmos network. This interoperability empowers developers to easily create and connect decentralized applications (dapps) across different chains.
Avril Dutheil, founding contributor of Neutron, highlighted the platform’s goal to address the main challenges faced by smart-contract developers in Cosmos, including security, credible neutrality, and access to cross-chain infrastructure.
The utilization of RS and Neutron’s cross-chain infrastructure facilitates the realization of cross-chain functions over IBC.
The funding round for Neutron comes at a time when the landscape for venture capital (VC) funding in the crypto industry remains tight.
The first quarter of this year alone witnessed approximately $18 billion in funding raised by the AI industry, partly at the expense of crypto companies.
Evan Cheng, founder of Mysten Labs, noted that AI startups are now capturing a significant share of venture capital money that was once allocated to the crypto sector.
Cheng acknowledged that early-stage crypto companies can still secure funding, although their valuations have been impacted by the recent crypto market volatility.
