Pontem, a Singapore-based product development studio in the Web3 sector, announced that it has raised $6 million in its latest funding round co-anchored by Lightspeed Faction and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
The round was also backed by other notable investors including Pantera Capital, Aptos Foundation, Wintermute, Altonomy, Shima Capital, and Kraken Ventures.
The funds will be allocated primarily to the development of Move Virtual Machine (VM) products on EVM-compatible blockchains such as Ethereum, including the new Move L2 Lumio.
Specializing in the development of Move and EVM-compatible products, Pontem is focused on enhancing the safety, performance, and developer-friendliness of Web3.
Since its establishment in 2019, Pontem has been actively involved in the Move ecosystem, initially focusing on a permissionless version of the Libra Blockchain, later transitioning to Aptos.
Alejo Pinto, co-founder of Pontem, expressed gratitude towards the investors, emphasizing the diverse expertise they bring to the table, combining both traditional and crypto venture knowledge.
Pontem’s strategy involves expanding the use of the Move programming language beyond Aptos and Sui, to encourage the development of secure and scalable dapps.
Banafsheh Fathieh, Co-founding Partner at Faction, acknowledged Pontem’s significant role in the Move ecosystem, while Paul Veradittakit of Pantera Capital highlighted Pontem’s efforts in building necessary infrastructure for a decentralized web.
The Move programming language, derived from Rust, enables the creation of secure and efficient smart contracts, offering advantages over Ethereum’s Solidity-based VM, such as enhanced throughput and security.
It is increasingly appealing to Web2 developers, especially those from traditional tech and finance sectors.
Additionally, the funding will support the launch of Move L2 Lumio, an Optimistic rollup on Ethereum, which aims to leverage Aptos for transaction processing.
Pontem’s existing products, including the Pontem Wallet and Liquidswap DEX on Aptos, have already seen significant user engagement.
With this latest round of funding, Pontem’s total capital raised reaches $10.5M. The company, initially rooted in technology developed by the Aptos team, continues to drive innovation and foster language diversity within Ethereum’s decentralized architecture.
AsiaTechDesk.com