Fluent Labs, a blockchain developer, has successfully raised $8 million in seed and seed extension rounds. The funding was led by Polychain Capital and included participation from Primitive, dao5, Symbolic Capital, Builder Capital, Nomad Capital, and Public Works. Additionally, notable angel investors such as Balaji Srinivasan, Mustafa Al-Bassam, Jason Yanowitz, Santiago Santos, Dingaling, Cristian Manea, and Will Price also contributed. The total amount raised represents Fluent Labs’ fundraising efforts to date, although the company has not disclosed its valuation.
The primary purpose of the raised capital is to expand Fluent Labs’ team, particularly in the engineering department. This expansion will support the growth of the Fluent ecosystem and the development of the necessary infrastructure for its testnet and future endeavors, according to Dino, the pseudonymous co-founder and CEO of Fluent Labs.
Understanding Fluent’s Blended Execution Network
Fluent Labs aims to address the limitations of current onchain execution environments by introducing its Ethereum Layer 2 blended execution network. The company argues that existing environments are restricted by the virtual machines, programming languages, and tooling they support, which hinders developers’ ability to build innovative applications. Fluent’s solution involves “blending” WebAssembly (Wasm), Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), and Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) applications into a unified execution environment. This approach enables developers to leverage multiple blockchain ecosystems without compatibility concerns. Notably, Wasm is already utilized by several prominent blockchains, including Polkadot, Near Protocol, and Cosmos.
Fluent Labs’ design allows for the addition of any virtual machine in the future, depending on market demand and developer needs. Dino explains that Fluent is creating a platform that combines the best features of EVM, SVM, and Wasm, providing developers with an expressive playground to build applications. This approach mirrors the way web2 apps utilize different programming languages and tools for various tasks, bringing this paradigm to the web3 space.
Luke Pearson, General Partner at Polychain Capital, emphasizes the significance of Fluent’s approach, stating that current blockchain execution environments are limited by the virtual machines they support and their functionalities. Fluent, on the other hand, maximizes expressiveness and allows developers to use the best tools for each task without worrying about compatibility.
Benefits for End Users
Developers are already leveraging Fluent Labs’ blended execution network to build a variety of applications. The company claims that over 60 projects are currently being developed within its ecosystem. These projects include the onchain quant protocol Thales, the web3 platform Floodlight (similar to Product Hunt), and Solidity-based DeFi projects that incorporate Rust components to enhance performance and efficiency.
For end users, Fluent Labs’ platform offers the advantage of accessing applications from different virtual machine ecosystems in one place, eliminating the need to switch wallets. Additionally, Fluent Labs plans to parallelize the blended environment, enabling high-performance and cost-effective app usage across all supported virtual machines.
Dino provides examples of how Fluent’s blended execution network can benefit end users. Users could utilize a decentralized exchange, built in Solidity like Uniswap, that supports Solana SPL tokens, allowing for the swapping of ERC-20 tokens for SPL tokens. The platform also enables atomic composability between ERC-20s and SPL tokens, facilitating flash loans and other use cases. Ultimately, Fluent’s approach leads to better and more innovative applications, enhancing the end user experience and realizing the original vision of web3.
An App-Led Abstracted Future
When asked about the potential future where applications dominate the crypto landscape, with the complexities of various blockchain protocols hidden from users, the co-founder of Fluent agrees. The goal is to create an environment where the technical complexity of blockchain becomes invisible to end users. Similar to how internet users don’t concern themselves with TCP/IP or HTTP when browsing websites, blockchain users should be able to interact with applications without worrying about the underlying infrastructure.
Fluent Labs is working towards making onchain interactions as intuitive as using a smartphone app. The focus is on creating applications that feel familiar, responsive, and frictionless, regardless of the complex mechanics happening behind the scenes. The aim is to deliver a user experience that is seamless and user-friendly.
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