RWA network Pharos lands a $1 billion valuation in $44M funding round ahead of mainnet debut

Pharos Network, a layer 1 blockchain focused on tokenized real-world assets, said it raised $44 million in a Series A round led by a mix of traditional finance and crypto investors.

Backers include Sumitomo Corporation’s venture arm, SNZ Holding, Chainlink and Flow Traders, along with unnamed financial institutions the firm described as “giants in global finance.” The funding comes as interest grows in bringing assets like bonds, energy projects and private credit onto blockchain rails.

Pharos says it is building an “asset-native” network designed to handle regulated financial activity at scale. Its system uses parallel processing to support large volumes of transactions, with compliance features aimed at institutions that need audit trails and identity checks.

The company targets a market it values at $50 trillion. While far from that figure, the tokenization space has been growing, with data showing total real-world assets onchain are now at $24.3 billion. That’s up from $14 billion at the beginning of the year.

Pharos also pointed to activity on its testnet, which it said includes millions of users and unique addresses, and a partnership with energy firm GCL tied to solar-backed assets. These figures, common in pre-launch networks, are often driven by incentives and are hard to verify independently.

The raise follows an earlier seed round where the firm raised $8 million. That round was co-led by Lightspeed Faction and Hack VC. It also comes after a recent investment from GCL New Energy (0451) that valued the firm near $1 billion.

Its mainnet is expected to debut in the near future.