Informal Systems, a leading core developer team in the Cosmos ecosystem, announced today the successful completion of its first funding round, securing a $5.3 million convertible note investment. The round was led by CMCC Global, a prominent venture capital firm specializing in blockchain technology.
Founded by Cosmos co-founder Ethan Buchman (CEO) and long-time core Cosmos contributors Arianne Flemming (COO) and Zarko Milosevic (CTO), Informal Systems is a trusted name in the industry known for its vision and commitment to quality. With their expertise as lead developers for CometBFT, Interchain Security, Hermes, IBC-rs, Apalache, and Quint, as well as their contributions to the advancement of the Cosmos Hub ecosystem, and their role as a major validator and relayer across Cosmos chains, they are dedicated to pushing the interchain to new frontiers, and to meaningfully connecting it with the real world. Informal seeks to leverage interchain technology to transform the quality standards of software development and deployment, monetary issuance and distribution, and organizational ownership and governance.
Informal Systems has established a strong reputation for its deep technical expertise and its ability to deliver high-quality solutions. As a result, the company has become a leader in the Cosmos ecosystem and built multiple profitable business lines. This funding round marks a crucial milestone as Informal Systems sought the right partners to support its evolution into a more commercial phase of the company’s growth.
A significant focus of this fundraising effort lies in bolstering Informal Security, the company’s highly respected security auditing division, which is renowned in the Cosmos ecosystem and beyond. Through the utilization of formal methods technology - like their new executable specification language, Quint -Informal Security supports development teams in specifying and understanding their software and protocols, finding elusive bugs, and overall improving the quality of the software development lifecycle.
Informal's ambitions extend beyond the Cosmos Ecosystem as it aspires to transform the nature of financial institutions. Their flagship project, Collaborative Finance (CoFi), acts as a bridge between blockchain technology and the real world. CoFi leverages existing patterns in real-world networks of credit and payments to reduce more debt with less money, empowering communities to build more robust and sustainable monetary systems. To begin, Informal is targeting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with clearing technologies previously accessible only to banks. Funds from this round will be used to execute on the core CoFi protocols and platform, to be described in an upcoming whitepaper. CoFi aims to leverage the Cosmos technology and interoperability standards to build a blockchain-based clearing and liquidity injection system for real businesses, incorporating a wide variety of liquidity sources, with API integrations into traditional accounting and financial products.
“This is an exciting time for our company as we evolve our commercial offerings, bringing our deep technical expertise to market with new and impactful use cases. This fundraiser marks an important step for Informal, enabling us to continue to lead and expand the interchain while transforming the quality standards of software, money, and organizations.” Ethan Buchman, CEO Informal Systems.
As the lead investor for this round, CMCC Global brings not only financial support but also valuable industry expertise and a strong network of strategic partners. In addition to CMCC Global, investors in this round include: Nascent, Maven11, CMT Digital, BKCM, Cygni, and Cerulean Ventures. Angels participating include founders and core entities from the Celestia, Anoma, and Eigenlayer.
This group of investors were brought together based on their distinct value-add perspectives, encompassing diverse jurisdictions, market focus, and areas of expertise.
“We are thrilled to be leading this first round of funding for Informal Systems. The company is relentless in its pursuit of innovation; from advances in formal verification and blockchain protocol development, through to experimentation in corporate governance and workflow processes. Informal Systems will shape the future of the Cosmos ecosystem and decentralized technologies, and we are excited to support them on this journey.” Charlie Morris, Managing Partner CMCC Global.
With the successful completion of its first funding round, Informal Systems solidifies its position as a leader in the Cosmos ecosystem and sets the stage for further growth and innovation. The company's strong track record of commercializing deep technical expertise makes it a sought-after partner for ventures in the interchain space.
