Optimum Secures Angel Round to Launch High-Performance Web3 Memory, Built on 15 Years of MIT Research
Cambridge, Mass., February 28th, 2025, Chainwire
Led by Tech Visionary Muriel Médard, powered by MIT-Incubated RLNC, Optimum is Set to Redefine Efficiency and Scalability For The World Computer
Optimum, the world’s first decentralized high-performance memory infrastructure for any blockchain, announced today that it is emerging from stealth with backing from leading Web3 pioneers, to bring Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) —a proven technology from 5G, IoT, and satellite communications—to the world computer, unlocking a new paradigm for Web3 scalability and efficiency.
Optimum’s angel investors include many renowned builders and investors, such as Abhijeet Mahagaonkar (CTO, Polychain), Arthur Cheong (Founder CEO CIO, DeFiance Capital), Gracy Chen (CEO, Bitget), Robinson Burkey (Co-founder CCO, Wormhole), Sandeep Nailwal (Co-founder, Polygon), Sankha Banerjee (Chief Economist, Babylon), Saurabh Sharma (GP, Jump Crypto), Tal Tchwella (Head of Product, Solana), and Zaki Manian (Co-founder, Sommelier), as well as co-founders of Aethir, Aztec, Espresso, Magna, Pyth, Taiko, Zama, ZkCloud and more.
Optimum enhances blockchain scalability and efficiency through RLNC, a patented invention by MIT Professor Muriel Médard, fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and member of the U.S. and German National Academies of Engineering. Developed over 15 years, RLNC has successfully been deployed by large enterprises worldwide to optimize large-scale distributed networks.
️️️️Prof. Muriel Médard is joined by co-founders Dr. Kishori Konwar, Meta Senior Engineer & Scientist, MIT PostDoc, and former Quant Developer at Goldman Sachs, and Kent Lin who formerly served the President of Harvard Blockchain, partner at GSR Ventures, and founded McKinsey Crypto DAO.
Sandeep Nailwal, Co-Founder at Polygon said: “What impresses me most about Optimum is how they’ve elegantly combined distributed systems theory with blockchain architecture to create something that feels like a missing piece of Web3 infrastructure. We’re looking forward to Optimum’s robust decentralized memory solution that can scale blockchain infrastructure without compromising on security or performance.”
Reimagining Efficiency Across The Web3 Ecosystem
Muriel Médard, co-founder of Optimum, added: “I have dedicated my entire career to making data resilient and accessible through decentralization. Now, Web3 is at an exciting turning point—its growth is accelerating, and the need for scalable, efficient data infrastructure has never been greater. To fully realize the vision of a decentralized ‘world computer,’ we must prioritize resilient networking and storage. The technology is ready, and the moment to build is now.”
Blockchains rely on data moving efficiently across a network of nodes. RLNC is an advanced encoding technique that transforms data into encoded fragments, allowing nodes to recover information efficiently from a subset rather than receiving everything.
Optimum’s products include Optimum P2P and decentralized Random Access Memory (deRAM) delivering benefits across the entire blockchain ecosystem:
- For L1 and L2 blockchains: Faster block propagation, reduced bandwidth consumption through Optimum P2P and optimized storage
- For validators: Accelerated data propagation, lower operational costs, and enhanced staking APY and MEV income
- For dApp developers: Improved transaction relay and prioritization, powering latency, throughput and cost-sensitive applications
- For end users: Dramatically faster transaction speeds and more responsive interfaces, making blockchain interactions as seamless as Web2
With backing from some of the most influential figures in Web3, Optimum is positioned to usher in a paradigm for Web3 as a high-performance decentralized world computer.
In March, Optimum’s private testnet will go live for L1/L2s and validators.
About Optimum
Optimum is the first high-performance memory infrastructure for any blockchain, designed to eliminate scalability bottlenecks by enabling fast data propagation, efficient storage, and real-time access. Powered by Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC)—a patented technology already used in 5G, IoT, and satellite communications—Optimum dramatically improves network speed, throughput and decentralization, enhancing dApp performance and user experience. Co-founded by MIT professor Muriel Médard, the inventor of RLNC, Optimum is scaling the next generation decentralized world computer.
Users can learn more at getoptimum.xyz and follow Optimum on X at x.com/get_optimum.