PANews reported on January 29th that, according to The Block, Sony's Innovation Fund has invested an additional $13 million in Startale Group, a co-developer of the Soneium blockchain, as the first tranche of its Series A funding round. Previously, Startale received $3.5 million in seed funding from Sony in 2023 and a $3.5 million seed extension round from Dahua Venture Capital Management and Samsung Next in 2024, bringing its total publicly disclosed funding to $20 million.

Headquartered in Singapore, Startale has partnered with Sony's Blockchain Solutions Lab to develop the Ethereum Layer 2 network Soneium and the Startale App, its ecosystem gateway application. Soneium, built on the OP Stack, focuses on entertainment industry applications and general-purpose scenarios. Since its mainnet launch in January 2025, it has processed over 500 million transactions, boasts 5.4 million active wallets, and supports over 250 active decentralized applications.