San Francisco-based blockchain development firm Movement Labs has secured an undisclosed investment from Binance Labs, the venture capital arm of the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance.

Binance Labs’ investment is in addition to the $38 million Series A round that Movement Labs announced last week, led by Polychain Capital.

Movement aims to build an ecosystem of modular Move-based blockchains, starting with “M2” — a Move Virtual Machine Layer 2 for Ethereum, according to a statement shared with The Block.

Movement said it would use the funds partly to expand into the Asia-Pacific region and to help grow adoption of the Move programming language across broader blockchain ecosystems by offering enhanced open-source tools for developers to deploy Move VM rollups easily.

"[Binance Labs’] support and expertise will be invaluable as we continue to execute our ‘Move Everywhere’ strategy, starting with a focus on the vibrant and innovative APAC market," Movement Labs co-founder Rushi Manche said. “By empowering and collaborating with the talented Move developers in the region, we aim to accelerate the adoption of Move and unlock new possibilities for the entire ecosystem."

Blockchain adoption of Move

Movement’s Layer 2 would expand the usage of the Move programming language beyond the well-known Aptos and Sui Layer 1 blockchains. Move was originally developed at Meta by a team composed of people from Facebook’s now-defunct Diem stablecoin project.

Movement Labs is also developing the Move Stack, an execution layer framework compatible with rollups like Optimism, Polygon and Arbitrum.

Movement is launching its public testnet, Parthenon, in the coming weeks and is aiming for a mainnet launch by the end of the year, Manche previously told The Block.