- Linera said it would cease project operations immediately because of a funding crunch and has no plans to resume the business in the near term.
- Linera said it raised a total of $12 million but is shutting down after failing to secure the additional funding needed to launch its mainnet.
- It said all committed funds were refunded after the LNRA token community sale failed to meet the 1.5 million USDC minimum threshold.
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Layer-1 blockchain project Linera is shutting down because of a funding crunch. 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 funding needed to launch its mainnet.
Linera founder Mathieu Baudet wrote on the project’s official Discord channel on Sept. 18 that it would “cease operations immediately” and does not plan to resume the business in the near term.
Linera also failed to meet its target in an LNRA token community sale on the Sonar platform. It secured about 848,300 USDC in investment commitments, short of the 1.5 million USDC minimum required for the sale to proceed. As a result, all committed funds were refunded. Linera had said before the sale began that all money would be returned if the minimum fundraising threshold was not met.
The team also sought emergency financing to continue operating until the mainnet launch, but failed to win additional investment. The project said the decision was unrelated to its technology, the capabilities of its developers or support from the community, and thanked its backers and users.
Linera was founded by Baudet, who previously worked on Meta’s digital-wallet project Novi. The project had been developing technology designed to improve transaction speed and scalability by running multiple small blockchains, known as microchains, in parallel.
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 August 2023, it secured another $6 million in a round led by Borderless Capital, bringing total funding to $12 million.
Investors in the second round 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 broaden its business in the Asia-Pacific region. It ultimately failed to secure additional funding and is shutting down without launching its mainnet.