Rakurai Raises $3 Million for Solana Staking Infrastructure Project

Rakurai, an infrastructure project centered around improving Solana staking, has raised $3 million.

The company’s seed funding round will help support the launch of Rakurai’s Solana staking platform, designed to provide high-quality of service (QoS) transaction landing, Rakurai announced in a Tuesday (March 11) news release provided to PYMNTS.

“Today’s funding news is one of many more milestones to come, as we build and deliver products that significantly increase TPS on Solana,” said Ali Rizvi, the firm’s CEO. “Rakurai has been able to accelerate Solana nodes through our unique innovations in transaction scheduling, which boost block rewards and benefit users, stakers and node operators, enabling everyone to thrive on Solana.”

According to the release,  Rakurai’s technology focuses on optimizing transaction scheduling to improve the efficiency of block creation and increase validator rewards.

In standard benchmark tests, the company’s nodes have shown five times the transactions per second (TPS) compared to the standard Solana client, the company added.

Aside from launching the staking platform, Rakurai said the new funding will help support product development and partnership growth.

The funding round was led by Anagram Ventures, joined by investors Colosseum, Slow Ventures, Robot Ventures and Crypto.com. P2P.org, GlobalStake and Cyber Fund.

“One of the greatest challenges that Solana faces today is the frequency of conflicting transactions and scheduler bottlenecks, which have resulted in inefficiencies in block packing,” said David Feiock, CIO of Anagram Ventures. “Rakurai’s solution aims to tackle this issue by optimizing the process, allowing for more efficient block creation and ultimately increasing validator rewards. We think Rakurai will be a critical piece of the IBRL puzzle.”

In other blockchain news, PYMNTS wrote earlier this week about the use of that technology in the banking sector, following Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)’s new approach to allowing lenders to hold cryptocurrencies.

“Unlike FinTech startups and crypto-native firms, banks possess a long-standing reputation for safeguarding assets, making them well-positioned to attract institutional clients seeking both regulatory compliance and robust security,” PYMNTS wrote. “By leveraging existing infrastructure and expertise, banks can bridge the gap between traditional finance and the digital asset space.”

Research from the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Blockchain’s Benefits for Regulated Industries” shows that blockchain technology has several potential benefits to meet the unique needs of regulated industries such as finance.

“As more banks integrate blockchain capabilities, customers will have greater choice in transferring value,” FV Bank CEO Miles Paschini told PYMNTS earlier this month. “We’re blazing the trail for a future where blockchain is just another payment rail.”