DoubleZero Foundation, a start -up that builds a “new internet” to improve the blockchain performance, raised $ 28 million for a valuation of $ 400 million, according to three people familiar with the case and are now looking for “strategic partners” to invest more for $ 600 million.

Dragonfly and Multicoin Capital lead the initial financing round, two of the population said. The subsequent strategic round is not yet closed, an insider said. Venture capital companies have jockeying hard for the allocation they could get, another said.

Doublezero refused to comment.

Fooling such a high valuation in an early round is unusual, but not unheard of for cryptic companies that pitter transformative systems. For DoubleZero’s side, its vision is to gather a global network of private fiber optic cables and then utilize them so that blockchains can transfer their data more efficiently than possible on the public internet.

Its motto – “Increase bandwidth, reduce latency” or IBRL – spread through the Solana community, even before Doublezero debuted his White Book in December. The project is seen as an activating technology for Solana’s greater plans to process one million transactions per year. Second.

Doublezero opens its allowed test network to Solana Validators and RPCs with plans to expand to other chains down the line, said a source known. Its network of fiber optic cables is tapping into private line driven by Jump Crypto, Rockawayx, distributed global, latitude and terraswitch and accepting multiple contributors.

At Solana’s Breakpoint Conference in September, Jump Crypto’s four -dancer -Team demonstrated that his superfast Solana client was running with Breakneck Speed. What they did not tell the amount at the time the participating validators were running on Doublezero Infrastructure

DoubleZero Foundation President Austin Federa was the previous strategy for strategy at the Solana Foundation. Its other co -founders, Andrew McConnell and Mateo Ward, are responsible for the project’s core contribution company, Malbec Labs. Jump Crypto is also a core contributor who also pitches early bandwidth to the network.

Federa has ghostly referred to DoubleZero as “Crypto’s first infrastructure project” due to its enormous dependence on hardware: fiber optic cables across land and sea. Instead of buying or building the expensive infrastructure, Doublezero will rely on independent communications companies that are willing to make money from their under -utilized goods.

It all reminiscent of Wall Street’s Speed ​​War, where trading companies spent big money on special fiber optic lines to shave precious milliseconds from their orders.

In an explanatory blog, the infrastructure company Helius Doublezero’s favorite data tube with a private car service and open internet compared an Uber. Both will eventually get you where you are going. But the private car will make it faster and more predictable.

“I think the Solana community has very resoundingly said:” We want to exceed what is possible on the public internet, “Federa said on a recent X -Rum, though he said Doublezero is” completely compatible “with any blockchain.

He compared the system with high -frequency trading companies’ dedicated fiber lines. “We just get to the point where blockchains are quick enough to make use of it.”