Founding Movement Labs in a College Dorm and Raising $38M in Funding

Published on: December 5, 2024
Updated: 4 days ago
Reading time: 8 minutes

The story of Movement Labs begins in a university dorm room, which was described as a musty basement reminiscent of a World War II bunker. Two broke college students decided to build a Web3 project from scratch. Just six months later, they dropped out of college to go "all-in" on their brainchild.

These two are Rushi Manche and Cooper Scanlon, co-founders of Movement Labs, a blockchain project that raised $38 million in a Series A funding round led by Polychain Capital. This year, Manche turned 21, and Scanlon is just 24.

During a morning interview with Coin98 Insights, Manche appeared a bit sleepy, wearing a t-shirt and athletic shorts. The interview lasted 17 minutes—less than half the usual time. His longest answer was a minute and a half, while the shortest took just 20 seconds.

The Spotlight is a series of exclusive interviews conducted by AmberBlocks with builders in the industry, discussing trending market topics.

### Dropping Out of College — Any Regrets?

AmberBlocks: Both you and your co-founder dropped out of college. Do you think you’ll regret that decision later?

Rushi Manche: College is traditionally seen as a path to get a job and start a career. However, our generation realizes that the road we’re told to follow no longer leads to the same destination.

The benefits of college aren’t as strong anymore. So, when we found a path that was more stable and logical, going "all-in" made complete sense.

Cooper Scanlon (left) and Rushi Manche (right) — co-founders of Movement Labs. Source: Movement Labs

### Early Start in Programming — How It Shaped Movement Labs

AmberBlocks: You got your first programming job at 14 and have extensive technical experience. How did this background shape the development of Movement Labs?

Rushi Manche: I’ve always been fascinated with distributed systems and payments. In August 2022, during my sophomore year, I came across a report about Facebook’s new programming language called Move.

I was instantly excited. This new language was innovative, offering high throughput and security. I dove deep into it, and that’s how Movement Labs was born.

### Why Build on Move?

AmberBlocks: What aspects of Move made you choose it as the foundation for Movement Labs?

Rushi Manche: There are two key reasons: security and parallelization.

Between 2022 and 2023, hackers stole more than $5.4 billion from smart contracts. Move is specifically designed to make smart contract deployment safer. It enables developers to inspect and control the existing resources to address vulnerabilities—a capability that Solidity does not provide.

Moreover, Move employs parallelization, a technique for processing multiple threads of work simultaneously, leading to higher transaction throughput.

The combination of speed and security makes Move a powerhouse for EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) development at Movement Labs.

### Making Blockchain Security 'Sexy'

AmberBlocks: Movement Labs claimed it would make blockchain security "sexy." What does that mean?

Rushi Manche: I believe security has never been the industry's priority. We’ve become numb to hearing about hacks, whether it's $20 million or $100 million. But this is a serious issue. Attacks like reentrancy exploits frequently target major protocols like Curve and KyberSwap.

With Movement’s EVM, developers using Move and Solidity can deploy fully verified code at runtime. This blocks attack vectors like reentrancy exploits. We can prevent up to 90% of these attack vectors or more.

### From Aptos to Ethereum — Why the Move?

AmberBlocks: You’ve built apps and the first decentralized exchange on Aptos using Move. Why did you switch to Ethereum?

Rushi Manche: Cooper and I founded Movement Labs in November 2022, right after the FTX collapse. At that time, liquidity was scarce, and the developer ecosystem on Aptos wasn’t the most ideal. So, we decided to shift Movement to other ecosystems.

### Competing in a Crowded Blockchain Infrastructure Space

AmberBlocks: As more projects focus on infrastructure, how will Movement Labs stand out in a crowded ecosystem?

Rushi Manche: I believe that 99% of chains will disappear within 1-2 years, with only 5-10 chains surviving. Next-generation Layer-2 solutions and high-throughput environments will play pivotal roles in this new era.

To ensure Movement Labs is one of the winners, we need to capture significant market share by offering a solution that’s strong, secure, and scalable. Ethereum will need Move to achieve this goal.

### Securing $38M in Funding — How Did You Win Over VCs?

AmberBlocks: You’ve successfully raised $38 million in a Series A round. How did you attract venture capital?

Rushi Manche: In the early days of our fundraising, investors looked at us like, "Who are these kids? What are they doing? How can we trust them?"

Age was always a contentious issue, but I think that's changing now. The Movement Labs team, especially Cooper and me, proved that we’re leaders in our space. We’ve demonstrated our ability to grow the project and build a strong community ecosystem.

### The Advantage of Being Gen Z Founders

AmberBlocks: What’s the advantage of being Gen Z founders?

Rushi Manche: We’re full of energy, waking up refreshed every morning with no family burdens to worry about. Movement is my whole life—I don’t want anything else.

As digital natives raised in a tech-driven era, we’re naturally attuned to fast-moving spaces like blockchain. We’re not bogged down by outdated thinking or obsolete processes. Instead, we’re driven by a vision of what’s possible in the future.

### Advice for the Next Generation

AmberBlocks: Any words of wisdom for your generation and the ones before you?

Rushi Manche: To my fellow Gen Z: Start something as soon as possible and make as many mistakes as you can. Movement Labs struggled for 16 months, but now look where we are.

The $38 million in funding is not just a vote of confidence in our tech—it’s a testament to the power of fresh perspectives and bold ideas. Don’t be afraid to take risks and challenge the status quo.

To the older generation: Embrace the energy and creativity that young entrepreneurs bring to the table. Together, we can build a brighter future.