Raiku raises $13.5 million to bring 'guaranteed' transactions on Solana

Crypto startup Raiku has raised $13.5 million to build infrastructure that it says will make Solana transactions predictable and "guaranteed," tackling one of the blockchain network's biggest challenges under heavy demand.

The funding includes an $11.25 million seed round led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Jump Crypto, Lightspeed Faction, HashKey Capital and others, and a $2.25 million pre-seed round co-led by Figment Capital and Big Brain Holdings, with support from Reciprocal Ventures and Anagram. Notable angel investors — including Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Austin Federa, Kash Dhanda, and Julien Bouteloup — also joined.

Raiku began raising its seed round in March 2025 and closed last month, while the pre-seed started in April 2024 and wrapped in October, founder and CEO Robin Nordnes told The Block. Both rounds were structured as simple agreements for future equity (SAFEs) with token warrants, Nordnes said. He declined to comment on Raiku’s post-money valuation.

While Solana is known for speed, its reliability falls sharply during periods of congestion, Nordnes said, noting that Raiku aims to deliver predictable and “guaranteed” transactions.

“For institutions and advanced DeFi apps, speed isn’t enough. They need certainty, being able to predict when a transaction will land, and run strategies on microsecond precision,” Nordnes said. “We’ve built Raiku to give developers and validators the infrastructure to guarantee that outcome.”

How Raiku works

Nordnes explained that Raiku introduces a parallel execution layer, allowing developers to pre-confirm transactions into Solana blocks. Its scheduling engine reserves blockspace with validators, creating what he called “guaranteed block inclusion.” Features such as "Ahead-of-Time (AoT) and Just-in-Time (JiT)" reservations, he said, open up new strategies and dynamics for developers and institutions.

The system uses high-performance edge computing placed close to where Solana transactions originate, enabling confirmation speeds of 30–50 milliseconds, according to Nordnes. Through Raiku’s blockspace marketplace, developers, and institutions can secure reliable execution “even under extreme load,” he added.

Nordnes pointed to use cases such as market makers securing cancel-and-replace orders, oracle providers ensuring timely data updates, and node operators generating new revenue streams by selling predictable blockspace.

Competitive landscape

Nordnes acknowledged rivals such as Jito’s Block Assembly Marketplace (BAM), Paladin (incubated by bloXroute), and Temporal, with Jito BAM being the closest comparable. But he said Raiku’s approach differs.

Jito BAM uses trusted execution environments to run a plugin-driven block builder, but that enforces limitations on applications that don’t opt in, Nordnes said. Raiku is written from scratch in Rust for performance and flexibility, giving validators and developers freedom of choice rather than a one-size-fits-all system, he added.

As for its business model, Nordnes said Raiku expects most revenue to come from protocol-native fees, including transaction priority lanes, blockspace marketplaces, and take rates from liquidity provisioning. Equity-linked revenues will come from validator operations and specialized RPC services tailored for builders, he added.

Status and next steps

Raiku began development in July 2024 and deployed its first version to devnet that December, where it has been running without incident, Nordnes said. A testnet with validator partners including Kiln, Figment, Everstake, Chorus One and Blockdaemon is already live. Raiku v2, which will open access to developers via an SDK, is expected later this year, with a mainnet launch planned for 2026.

“Without infrastructure that service providers can depend on, Solana cannot become the future of finance, computing, and information,” Nordnes said.

“Raiku addresses one of the most critical gaps in blockchain infrastructure: predictable execution at scale,” said Nihal Maunder, a partner at Pantera Capital. “Their architecture offers real-world reliability and opens the door to the next generation of onchain financial systems, on Solana.”

Raiku currently employs about 20 people across Europe and Asia. No investor board seats were issued in connection with the pre-seed or seed rounds.

The Funding newsletter:  Stay on top of the latest crypto VC funding and M&A deals, news, and trends with my free bi-monthly newsletter, The Funding. Sign up here!