Binance Labs Boosts Investment in ‘Solana Killer’ Blockchain Aptos

Blockchain startup Aptos Labs, founded by former Meta Platforms employees who worked on the defunct Diem project, is receiving increased investment from Binance Labs, the venture capital arm of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

The increased funding in Aptos, coming after a first round of funding announced in March, is partly due to the programming language used by the company in building its blockchain, according to Yi He, co-founder of Binance and the head of Binance Labs.

The language, called Move, which had been intended for the Diem blockchain, “is different from BNB Chain and Solana and is more efficient and secure,” she said. 

Infrastructure development

He said the investments demonstrated Binance Labs’ commitment to infrastructure building, which “remains a bottleneck within the industry.” Recent hacks and network outages have also shown the importance of blockchain infrastructure.

“We believe that the technological competitiveness of the team could bring increased scalability to the blockchain infrastructure while also supporting novel use cases for Web3,” she said.

Although Binance Labs was unable to disclose the amount of its latest investment, He said that the market value for Aptos Labs was estimated to be around $4 billion, which a spokesman later denied without clarification.

Aptos funding

Prior to Binance’s first investment in March, the company had been valued at over $1 billion. After having raised $200 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and the maligned crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, Aptos raised another $150 million in July, more than doubling its valuation.

To further support the development of its blockchain infrastructure, Aptos said it would use the funds to expand its team, which “will also build out ecosystem initiatives and tooling to further grow the Aptos community.”

Meanwhile, Aptos rival Mysten Labs said last week that it raised $300 million, putting its valuation at over $2 million. The company was also founded by former Meta employees who had worked with the Move language on the Diem project.