Layer-1 project Linera announced on September 19 that it is shutting down after a community token sale raised well below the minimum target and subsequent emergency financing failed to close the gap. The team said the decision was driven by funding shortfalls rather than any issue with its technology or personnel. Linera, founded by former Meta researcher Mathieu Baudet, had developed a scalable network of small, parallel chains it called microchains.
Linera token sale and emergency financing
Linera’s LNRA community round on the Sonar platform drew $848,271 in USDC from 617 participants, roughly 57% of the $1.5 million minimum required for the sale to close. Because the threshold was not met, the sale did not complete and every contribution was refunded rather than locked into the project. The team described the result as nearly $900,000 in commitments and said follow-up emergency financing efforts also failed to cover the shortfall.
Funding history and next steps
The shutdown is notable given Linera had previously raised about $12 million across two venture rounds. A $6 million seed round announced in June 2022 was led by a16z Crypto, with participation from Cygni Capital, Kima Ventures and Tribe Capital. A second $6 million round followed in August 2023, led by Borderless Capital and backed by Flow Traders, GSR, Matrixport and Laser Digital. The team said it is winding down the application and will eventually close its Discord server; user point balances remain on record but carry no guarantee of future value. Linera said it still hopes to finish the protocol and launch applications, but offered no timeline, and thanked users who operated testnet nodes, tested applications and reported bugs during development.
Linera’s shutdown joins other recent examples of venture-backed startups running out of runway: the announcement notes stablecoin card issuer Kulipa shut down four months after a $6.2 million seed round. The firm also noted that a16z has continued to back new blockchain infrastructure—most recently leading a $25 million seed round in OpenReserve—but Linera’s microchain-based design will not reach mainnet under the current team.
