Movement Labs - From a College Dorm to $38 Million in Funding

Two years ago, in a college dorm room described as resembling a musty World War II bunker, two broke students began building a Web3 project. Six months later, they dropped out of college to go “all-in” on their brainchild.

They are Rushi Manche and Cooper Scanlon—the co-founders of Movement Labs, which recently raised $38 million in a Series A round led by Polychain Capital. This year, Rushi turned 21, and Cooper, 24.

During an early morning meeting with AmberBlocks, Manche appeared slightly drowsy, dressed in a casual t-shirt and shorts. The interview lasted only 17 minutes—less than half the usual duration. His longest answer was a minute and a half, and the shortest, 20 seconds.

The Spotlight is a series of exclusive interviews between AmberBlocks and industry leaders, diving into the hottest topics in the market.

- Both you and your co-founder left college. Do you think you’ll regret that decision?

Rushi Manche: College has traditionally been seen as a pathway to finding a job and starting a career. However, our generation realizes that the paths we were told to follow no longer lead to the same destinations.

The benefits of college aren’t as substantial anymore. So, when we found a more stable and reasonable route, going “all-in” made perfect sense.

- You landed your first coding job at 14 and have substantial experience in engineering. How did this background shape the development of Movement Labs?

Rushi Manche: I’ve always been fascinated by distributed systems and payments. In August 2022, during my sophomore year, while experimenting with databases, I stumbled upon an article about Facebook developing a new programming language—Move.

I was ecstatic. The new language was highly innovative, enabling high throughput while being secure. I started delving into it, and that’s where Movement Labs began.

- Could you elaborate on the characteristics of Move that made you choose it as the foundation for Movement Labs?

Rushi Manche: Two main reasons: security and parallelization.

From 2022 to 2023, hackers stole over $5.4 billion from smart contracts. Move is particularly adept at deploying secure smart contracts, allowing developers to examine existing resources to identify and fix vulnerabilities—a capability Solidity lacks.

Move also uses parallelization, processing multiple streams of activities simultaneously, which enhances transaction throughput.

The combination of Move’s speed and security creates an incredibly powerful Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) for Movement Labs.

- Movement Labs has claimed it will make blockchain security “sexy.” Could you explain this?

Rushi Manche: Security has never been a priority for the industry. We’ve become so succumbed and numb to hacks involving sums from $20 million to $100 million, but it remains a huge issue for retail. For instance, reentrancy attacks have affected major protocols like Curve and KyberSwap.

Movement Labs’ EVM enables Move and Solidity developers to deploy fully verified code at runtime, preventing attack vectors like reentrancy. We can mitigate up to 90% of these vectors, or even more.

- You used Move to develop apps and create the first decentralized exchange on Aptos. Why did you leave Aptos after just three months to build on Ethereum?

Rushi Manche: Cooper and I began developing Movement Labs in November 2022, right after the FTX collapse. Liquidity was scarce, and the developer ecosystem on Aptos wasn’t ideal. So, we decided to bring Movement Labs to other ecosystems.

- There’s a growing focus on infrastructure projects. What’s your take on this trend? What does Movement Labs need to stand out in such a competitive ecosystem?

Rushi Manche: I believe 99% of chains will disappear in the next 1–2 years, leaving perhaps 5–10 chains. High-throughput environments and next-generation layer-2s will play crucial roles in this new era.

To ensure Movement Labs is among the winners, we must capture significant market share by delivering robust, secure, and scalable solutions to meet the demands of modern blockchain applications. Ethereum will need Move to get that done well.

- Movement Labs successfully raised $38 million in its Series A round. How did you attract venture capitalists?

Rushi Manche: In the early days, investors looked at us like, “Who are these kids? What are they even doing? How can we trust them?”

But over time, I think the Movement Labs team, especially Cooper and I, built strong credibility by leading the category we’re working in. We demonstrated our ability to develop the project and build a strong community ecosystem.

Age has always been a contentious issue, but I think that’s changing now.

- What are the advantages of being Gen Z founders?

Rushi Manche: We’re energetic, wake up fresh every morning, and don’t have spouses or kids to worry about. Movement Labs is my entire life—I don’t want anything else.

Growing up in a digital era with rapidly advancing technology gives us a natural ability to innovate and adapt in fast-moving spaces like blockchain. We’re not burdened by outdated thinking or legacy practices—instead, we’re driven by a vision of what’s possible in the future.

We’re energetic, wake up fresh every morning, and don’t have spouses or kids to worry about. Movement Labs is my entire life—I don’t want anything else.

- Any message for your generation or the previous ones?

Rushi Manche: To Gen Z: Start building as early as possible and fail as often as possible. Movement Labs struggled tremendously in the first 16 months, but here we are.

The $38 million in funding isn’t just validation of our technology but also proof of the power of fresh perspectives and bold ideas. Don’t be afraid to take risks and challenge the status quo.

To the generations prior: Embrace the energy and innovation that young entrepreneurs bring. Together, we can build a better future.

Read more: Co-founder of The Sandbox: 'Good Web3 Games Should Be Designed Like the Game of Life'.