Interest in the Monad ecosystem is soaring as three Monad-based projects announced venture capital funding in quick succession on Thursday.
One notable example is Monad liquid staking platform aPriori, which reached a token valuation of at least $100 million with $8 million in seed funding, as I exclusively reported at the time. It’s quite remarkable that the Monad blockchain has even launched and reached a nine-figure valuation. Two other projects, Monad liquid staking protocol Kintsu and Monad-based on-chain order book exchange Kuru, raised $4 million and $2 million, respectively.
All three projects have attracted big-name investors. Brevan Howard Digital, the crypto arm of the hedge fund giant, backed both Kintsu and Kuru, despite the fund’s relatively low investment activity in the crypto space. CMS Holdings, on the other hand, has invested in all three Monad projects. Other big-name investors who have invested in these projects include Pantera Capital, Electric Capital, and Castle Island Ventures.
This surge in project funding comes on the heels of Monad Labs, the developer of the Monad blockchain, raising $225 million in a Series A funding round in April, led by larger firm Paradigm, which reportedly valued the company at $3 billion.
So why are VCs interested in Monad and its ecosystem? I spoke to six investors who were very committed to Monad’s prospects, particularly its high transactions per second and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility.. “What’s particularly interesting about Monad is that it was heavily inspired by apartment appropriate
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and Sui 
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“They were instrumental in designing a parallel execution environment while maintaining compatibility with the EVM,” said Aric Chang, general partner at Manifold Ventures and an investor in aPriori.
Parallel execution allows Monad to process multiple transactions simultaneously, improving throughput over traditional sequential methods. EVM compatibility, on the other hand, allows developers to Ethereum 
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The Ethereum and EVM developer community is the largest in crypto, said Lauren Stephanian, general partner at Pantera Capital, who led aPriori’s seed round, citing Electric Capital’s latest cryptocurrency developer report. “Due to Monad’s unique high throughput, the EVM developer community is Solana 
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“Today, for example, high-fidelity DeFi, DePIN, payments, etc.,” said Stephanian. “The bullish view on Monad is that as more developers innovate in these verticals, great products will be built.”
Jed Breed, founder and general partner of Breed VC and an investor in Kintsu and Kuru, said Monad’s parallel execution and throughput of up to 10,000 transactions per second could enable many on-chain activities that were previously impossible.
These investors see Monad as a catalyst for cryptocurrency adoption in the next two to three years. Matthew Walsh, a founding partner at Castle Island Ventures and an investor in Monad Labs and Kintsu, sees Monad as a strong foundation for stablecoins, calling it a “killer application” that will grow exponentially in the coming years.
“Monad could potentially surpass Solana’s growth trajectory, attracting a very diverse ecosystem of DeFi and consumer-facing apps,” said Manifold’s Chang. Dan Matuszewski, co-founder and president of CMS Holdings, said Monad could eventually reach the level of adoption of Ethereum and Solana, but noted it would take “years.”
Robinson Burkey, Co-Founder of the Wormhole Foundation and early investor in Monad Labs, Kintsu, and aPriori, shared his thoughts on Monad’s competitive advantages over other EVM blockchains, saying, “Monad promises to be a very fast and stable blockchain (supply) with a guaranteed influx of builders and users (demand), based on its ability to build a lot of momentum so far.”
All six investors interviewed for this edition expressed a willingness to invest more in Monad-based projects. “We’ve allocated a significant portion of our fund to focus on Monad,” Breed said.
CMS Holdings’ Matuszewski noted that more and more Monad projects have been raising funds over the past few months. “They’re all going to start going public between now and the fall,” Matuszewski said, hinting that another wave of Monad-based projects could emerge just before the blockchain goes live on mainnet later this year.
Keone Hon, co-founder and CEO of Monad Labs, acknowledged the early stages of the Monad ecosystem and sees significant opportunities for growth. “The number of people with cryptocurrency wallets that use decentralized apps is still small,” Hon said. “Most crypto enthusiasts have only used centralized exchanges to trade crypto. There is huge demand and huge opportunity.”
Opportunities come with risks and challenges.
The Greatest Danger of Monads
Manifold Ventures’ Chang highlighted two of Monad’s biggest risks: the possibility that it won’t live up to its technical promise, and the challenge of attracting a wide range of applications after launch. “Every Monad native project I’ve talked to is built on top of Monad because they need to operate in a really scalable environment, and the value proposition of Monad would be nullified if it doesn’t achieve the level of scale that they expect,” Chang said. But Chang added that the large ecosystem and community that Monad has already built “gives us confidence in its long-term success.”
CMS Holdings’ Matuszewski echoed Chang’s sentiment, saying Monad still has significant technical hurdles to overcome. “It’s a black box right now. We don’t know what’s going to happen,” Matuszewski said. But he noted that Monad’s early adoption and community-building efforts suggest it could be a “pretty robust ecosystem from the get-go.”
Breed of Breed VC pointed out that one of the biggest risks is that Monad’s platform is still in its early stages and the technology is unproven.
Bucky of the Wormhole Foundation also agreed with the importance of Monad delivering on its promises and expressed confidence in the project team. “With great momentum comes great and timely commitment,” Bucky said. “But there’s no reason to believe they won’t deliver.”
Pantera Capital’s Stephanian said Monad’s biggest risk is attracting developers from other EVM chains. Despite its potential high throughput, Monad will need to convince people currently working on Ethereum Layer 2 and Layer 3 to switch, Stephanian said.
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