Unto Labs, a crypto project led by former Jump Crypto employees, is quietly building the next-generation "performance beast" blockchain. On April 29, the project completed a $14.4 million financing round, reaching a valuation of $1.4 billion, with Framework Ventures and Electric Capital, two leading institutions, co-leading the investment.

Core developer Heeger is working on building a "homegrown engine" for this new chain—a virtual machine called ThruVM based on the RISC-V architecture. The goal is to allow Web2 engineers to easily go on-chain, freeing the development experience from the constraints of EVM and BPF.

What Exactly Is Unto Labs?

In an age of rampant memes, overlaid AI concepts, a virtually "zero publicity" startup is quietly performing surgery at the bottom of the chain—Unto Labs, dedicated to reconstructing the blockchain world's "operating system."

Unto Labs is a tech-focused startup team building a brand-new Layer1 blockchain infrastructure. The core product is a high-performance virtual machine and blockchain network under development, codenamed Thru. The ambition behind this name is clear: they don't aim to be another "faster Ethereum" but to completely disrupt the existing virtual machine paradigm and rebuild the underlying architecture of on-chain logic.

You can think of Unto as "the people creating new chips for the chain world"—what they aim to do is provide a more open, flexible, and powerful execution base for future applications that have not yet emerged.

The project's tech stack revolves around "modular design." Founder Heeger's core idea is that developers should have the ability to freely combine on-chain logic like a LEGO set, rather than be bound by fixed runtime frameworks.

This also means that future dApp developers can deeply customize their virtual environment, insert different modules (such as data validation, execution engines, concurrency logic), and even freely choose programming languages, no longer limited to Solidity. Unto's goal is clear: to build a "developer-defined rule" virtual execution environment, providing infrastructure support for the next generation of on-chain games, AI agents, DeFi systems, and more.

The design of the Thru blockchain combines innovative consensus mechanisms with a highly customizable VM structure, aiming to achieve truly "global-level load" performance capability while balancing decentralization and user experience. The project is currently in the Alpha stage, only open for testing to a few technical partners, not yet launched on the mainnet or testnet, but test feedback has shown its strong resilience and performance scalability, especially suitable for high-complexity on-chain applications.

The uniqueness of Unto lies not only in its technological ambition but also in its restrained "anti-market sentiment" attitude. In the restless market, they did not tell meme stories or chase alliterative concepts but quietly honed a system engineering project deep and robust enough. If EVM ushered in the first wave of smart contract craze in Web3, Unto aims to lay a solid foundation ahead of the arrival of the "super application chain."

Perhaps it is not yet its "prime time," but for Builders who truly focus on fundamental innovation, Unto is likely the next technological paradigm worth long-term attention.

Who Are the Founders?

Unto Labs' technical prowess is not only "advanced in concept" but also supported by a group of veterans who have built "real things." The team chose not to follow the old path of "quick launch, rapid token issuance" but devoted themselves to building a "chip-level" technological architecture.

Key figures include Heeger and Twitter user @CantelopePeel (real name Ben Eidinger). Heeger is the lead developer of ThruVM, leading the modular architecture design of the entire virtual machine, with profound expertise in low-level system construction.

Meanwhile, @CantelopePeel is a well-known figure—he was a core engineer at Solana, leading the development of the high-performance validation client Firedancer. This was a crucial component created by Solana to overcome network performance bottlenecks, representing one of the current highest standards for high-performance on-chain validation. One working on EVM and the other on Firedancer, their collaboration is more like the "dream team of chain tech enthusiasts."

There is also a co-founder @b3b0pt, whose public information is relatively scarce, but according to the community, he also comes from Jump Crypto. The entire core team of Unto currently consists of only 5 individuals, resembling a "high-density combat formation." However, with the completion of financing, they are planning to expand to 10 individuals, focusing on strengthening backend development and business expansion.

It is worth noting that Jump Crypto has always been renowned for its technical prowess, and its former members' independent projects have mostly continued the style of "low-key, pragmatic, technology-first." In a market hyped with AI, memes, and RWAs, Unto's "silence" has instead become a rare technical signal.

Funding Lineup: Top Institutions Join Forces to Bet Big

Unto Labs has completed a $14.4 million funding round, co-led by Framework Ventures and Electric Capital, both top-tier VCs in the crypto space known for their investments in star projects like Chainlink, Aave, NEAR, and EigenLayer.

The valuation of Unto in this round has reached $1.4 billion, and the funds will be used to expand the team, accelerate ThruVM development, and advance ecosystem development. The endorsement from these two major institutions also demonstrates the market's high recognition of Unto's technical direction.

Project Technical Highlights

Unto Labs is developing the Thru blockchain, a high-performance Layer 1 project targeting the fusion of Web2 and Web3.

Its core technical highlights include the in-house ThruVM virtual machine, designed based on an open RISC-V architecture, supporting mainstream programming languages like Rust and C++, thus lowering the barrier for Web2 developers to enter the blockchain space. In comparison to Ethereum's EVM and Solana's BPF, ThruVM potentially offers advantages in compatibility and development efficiency.

In terms of consensus mechanism, Thru has departed from the traditional PoW and PoS accrual models, experimenting with a competition-based new mechanism aimed at enhancing network throughput and confirmation efficiency to support larger-scale account and transaction demands. In terms of performance, Thru aims to achieve 10 times the performance of Solana, targeting large-scale applications including DeFi, gaming, and social activities.

While the specific implementation has not been publicly disclosed, the team has previously participated in the development of Solana Firedancer, providing an experiential guarantee for its high-performance commitment. Unlike many chains focusing on crypto-native scenarios, Thru emphasizes penetrating into enterprises and traditional industries to expand use cases beyond the encrypted sphere into areas like supply chain, IoT, and traditional finance, attempting to break the boundaries of blockchain.

Additionally, the team possesses first-hand development experience with Solana and Firedancer, demonstrating strong technical capabilities. If their goal of being "10 times faster than Solana" can be realized, Thru has the potential to become a new stronghold for DeFi, GameFi, and social application scenarios. The early backing from top VCs has also laid a solid foundation for its ecosystem launch and developer incentives.

The development of Unto Labs also faces some challenges. The development of a high-performance blockchain involves complex consensus mechanisms, virtual machine optimization, and network stability. Thru's performance goals need to be validated through a testnet to prove their feasibility. Moreover, the Layer 1 space already has strong competitors like Solana, Aptos, Sui, among others. Unto Labs must attract users through unique technology and developer incentive measures. Currently, the project has a relatively small community and needs to increase its marketing efforts and enhance developer education to establish a vibrant ecosystem.

Currently in the early stages of development, the success of Thru in the future will depend on the realization of its technology, the development of a developer ecosystem, and its differentiated performance compared to other competitors in the market.

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