MIT-Incubated Optimum Raises $11M to Build Web3's Missing Memory Layer Using RLNC

MIT-Incubated Optimum Raises $11M Seed Round to Build Web3's Missing Memory Layer

The seed round was led by 1kx, with participation from Robot Ventures, Finality Capital, Spartan and others.

Author: Ian Ellison | Edited by: Sheldon Reback Updated: April 15, 2025, 5:32 PM Published: April 15, 2025, 1:00 PM

What you need to know:

• Web3 lacks a dedicated memory layer, making its current architecture less efficient and difficult to scale.
• Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) provides a solution to improve the efficiency of data distribution and storage in decentralized systems.

Optimum, a decentralized memory layer that improves performance for any blockchain, has raised $11 million in a seed round, calling on its creators from institutions like Harvard and MIT to move from academia into the realm of commercial cryptocurrency.

The seed round was led by 1kx with participation from Robot Ventures, Finality Capital, Spartan, CMT Digital, SNZ, Triton Capital, Big Brain, CMS, Longhash, NGC, Animoca, GSR, Caladan, Reforge and others.

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According to the press release, Optimum is developing the so-called missing memory layer for blockchains, making the processes of storing, accessing and distributing data faster, more affordable and truly decentralized.

At the core of Optimum's innovation is a decentralized coding method for distributed systems known as random linear network coding (RLNC), developed by MIT professor Muriel Medard, who will speak at Consensus Toronto 2025.

“If you think of Web3 as a decentralized world computer, people have done wonderful work in computing; say, building an operating system,” Medard said in an interview. “But anyone who has built a computer knows that you also need a bus to transfer data and memory, what we call random-access memory, as opposed to more static memory like disk or the cloud.”

READ ALSO: Muriel Medard: Web3 Has Memory Problems – And We Finally Found a Solution

According to Medar, the lack of a scalable memory layer leads to systemic inefficiencies in blockchains, such as legacy gossip networks that overspread data, overcrowded meme pools that cause unpredictable latencies, and bloated nodes that make information retrieval expensive and difficult.

The Optimum memory infrastructure addresses the problems of inefficient data distribution, redundant storage, and slow access using the RLNC coding scheme proposed by Medard.

Optimum is now on closed testnet and inviting L1, L2, validators and node operators to test its decentralized memory layer in action.

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