Solana-based Layer 2 will soon close funding.

Solana Optimistic Network (SOON) has closed a funding round for its Solana-based layer-2 scaling solution, according to an August 27 announcement.

The so-called “co-developer” round only solicited funds from individuals, not venture firms. Participants include executives from Solana Foundation, Solana Labs, Coinbase Ventures, Celestia and Avail.

Funding for Web3 startups is stabilizing after a year-long decline that began in 2023. According to Crunchbase, crypto ventures closed $2 billion in financing in the second quarter of 2024.

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According to the announcement, SOON is “designed to be an efficient and high-performance package using the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) as an execution layer on any layer-1 layer.”

It recently said that the funds from the round will help it build its flagship products SOON Stack and SOON Mainnet. The amount of funding raised was not disclosed.

SOON Stack “is a modular framework that combines SVM and OP Stack, allowing SVM Layer-2 to run on top of any Layer-1, such as Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Cosmos.” SOON Mainnet is a general purpose SVM layer 2 that deploys on top of Ethereum.

“Our vision with SOON is to combine Solana's power engine, SVM, with the fluidity and user base of other L1s, and make SVM standard for every L1 ecosystem – so every developer with limited performance environment can bring out the best. UX for users,” SOON co-founder and CEO Joanna Zeng said.

SOON is designed to integrate with data availability (DA) layers including CelestiADA, EigenDA, and Avail.

The cost of securely storing and accessing transaction data has been a serious bottleneck for layer-2 supply chains. Ethereum's Denkun update in March attempted to solve this problem with temporary on-chain data stores called “blobs”. Other protocols such as EigenDA and Celestia offer competing solutions.

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