BlockBeats News, August 2nd: According to Fortune magazine, cryptocurrency startup Subzero Labs has completed a $20 million seed round of financing. The round was led by crypto investment firm Pantera Capital, with participation from crypto venture funds Variant and Coinbase Ventures, as well as the crypto arm of high-frequency trading firm Susquehanna.

Subzero Labs Co-founder and CEO Ade Adepoju declined to disclose the company's valuation following this round of financing. He stated that the transaction was completed in the first quarter of this year and involved a combination of equity and token warrants (i.e., allocation rights to future unreleased crypto tokens).

Subzero Labs plans to launch a new blockchain called Rialo, designed for real-world applications. Rialo is not a traditional Layer 1 blockchain—in Adepoju's words, it is "not Layer 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6," and he is reluctant to draw analogies with existing crypto products. Rialo is aimed at non-crypto developers, allowing engineers to build on the blockchain functions that are normally off-chain. For example, it can access off-chain data without the need for an oracle, such as FICO credit scores.