Linera Halts Operations Amid Funding Shortfall After Raising $12 Million
Summary
- Linera said it is immediately suspending project operations because of a funding shortfall and has no plans to resume the business in the near term.
- Linera said it refunded the full roughly 848,300 USDC after its LNRA token community sale failed to meet the 1.5 million USDC minimum threshold.
- Linera said it had raised a cumulative $12 million from investors including a16z Crypto and Borderless Capital, but is shutting down without a mainnet launch after failing to secure additional funding.
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Layer-1 blockchain project Linera is halting operations because of a funding shortfall. The project raised a total of $12 million from investors including a16z Crypto, Andreessen Horowitz's digital-asset investment arm, and Borderless Capital, but failed to secure the additional capital needed to launch its mainnet.
Industry sources said on September 18 that Linera founder Mathieu Baudet announced on the project's official Discord that operations would stop immediately. He added that there are no plans to resume the business in the near term.
Linera also failed to meet its target in a community sale of its LNRA token on the Sonar platform. It secured investment commitments of about 848,300 USDC, short of the 1.5 million USDC minimum required for the sale to proceed. All committed funds were refunded to participants. Before the sale began, Linera had said it would return all funds if the minimum threshold was not met.
The team also sought emergency financing to keep operating through the mainnet launch, but failed to attract additional investment. Linera said the decision was unrelated to its technology, the capabilities of its developers or support from the community, and thanked backers and users.
Linera was founded by Baudet, who previously worked on Meta's digital wallet project Novi. The project has been developing technology that runs multiple small blockchains, known as microchains, in parallel to improve transaction speed and scalability.
Linera raised $6 million in a seed round led by a16z Crypto in June 2022. Signum Capital, Kima Ventures and Tribe Capital also participated in that funding round. In August 2023, it raised another $6 million in a round led by Borderless Capital, bringing total funding to $12 million.
The second round also included Laser Digital Ventures, DFG, Matrixport Ventures, Flow Traders and GSR Markets. Linera said at the time that it would use the proceeds to expand headcount, develop the protocol, launch a testnet and grow its business in the Asia-Pacific region. It ultimately shut down without launching a mainnet after failing to secure more funding.
