Sonic secures $12 million in Series A funding to boost gaming on Solana

Sonic, the first gaming-focused layer-2 blockchain to launch on Solana, has secured $12 million in Series A funding. The round was led by BITKRAFT Ventures, with additional investments from Galaxy Interactive, Big Brain Holdings, and other notable firms. This latest funding boost brings Sonic, developed by GameFi infrastructure firm Mirror World Labs, closer to its goal of transforming the gaming landscape on Solana.

The fresh capital infusion will be deployed to fuel further growth for the Sonic protocol, the first atomic SVM layer-2 on Solana built for gaming. According to the company news release, Sonic will also use the funding proceeds for growth initiatives for the Sonic protocol, which has “built-in mechanisms designed specifically for game development and execution on Solana, such as a sandbox environment, customizable gaming primitives and extensible data types, all while boasting the fastest on-chain-gaming experience.”

This $12 million Series A round follows a $4 million seed round raised in early 2022, bringing Sonic’s total funding to $16 million. Mirror World Labs, the force behind Sonic, continues to focus on developing comprehensive Solana gaming infrastructure, supporting developers, and gamers, and providing the technical solutions needed to run games smoothly.

A key aspect of Sonic’s strategy is to attract and support new developers within the Solana gaming ecosystem. To this end, Sonic will offer grants and acceleration programs to ease the transition for existing game developers to the Sonic SVM and HyperGrid Framework. The HyperGrid Framework is particularly noteworthy, enabling developers to seamlessly deploy new game engines and virtual machines on Solana. It acts as a grid deployment kit, allowing for the creation of individual spaces attached to the Solana blockchain for each new game.

While Solana has earned a reputation as a user-friendly blockchain, particularly in the retail sector, its gaming ecosystem has yet to achieve similar success. Sonic’s advanced technology stack is poised to change this by allowing developers to deploy high-speed SVM chains that can support a wide range of GameFi projects and other initiatives seeking a home on Solana.

Sonic founder and CEO Chris Zhu highlighted the company’s achievements and future ambitions: “For the past two years, we’ve supported hundreds of Web3 games with monetization and listing. Solana has been a major focus for us, and we’ve developed a comprehensive suite of tools and frameworks to support games. We believe the Sonic SVM will be crucial in ushering in a new era for Solana gaming, enabling thousands of games to launch and thrive.”

Justin Swart, Principal at BITKRAFT, expressed confidence in Sonic’s potential: “We expect the Sonic SVM to become the preferred platform for any gaming studio looking to build on Solana. With over a million new active addresses added to Solana in the past year, the Sonic HyperGrid is positioned to host some of the best games for these users. We’re excited to support this exceptional team.”

Founded by Chris Zhu, Sonic is the first atomic SVM Layer-2 designed to enable sovereign game economies that finalize on Solana. Powered by HyperGrid, a core technology developed by Mirror World, Sonic allows developers to deploy custom Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) chains that offer significant scalability advantages, revolutionizing the gaming experience on Solana.

Sonic founder and CEO Chris Zhu