In-development decentralized payments platform Logos Network has successfully raised $3 million in seed funding, the startup announced Thursday.

Participants in the round included ZhenFund, Digital Currency Group, INBlockchain, Blockwater Capital, Global Blockchain Innovative Capital, AlphaBlock Capital and AlphaCoin Fund, according to a press release.

Logos is working to build a payments network inspired by the bitcoin blockchain, with a focus on a scalable, rapid network that still maintains high levels of security.

The firm’s CEO, Michael Zochowski, said the platform’s advantage comes from its “novel architecture,” adding:

“We’re similar to bitcoin [but] a little bit more robust, cheaper and massively more scalable. We’re very much focused on our core payments functionality rather than a general purpose network.”

As such, the company is developing a blockchain that combines aspects of various other existing protocols, including delegated proof-of-stake and sharding, to build a network capable of “hundreds of thousands of transactions per second on the first layer,” he said.

Currently, the project has an internal test network, or testnet, running with the core consensus and architecture implemented, and plans to roll out a public testnet later in stages this autumn.

“We’ll start engaging the community at that point. In terms of the mainnet, that’ll be early 2019,” said Zochowski.

The seed funding will go towards not only helping develop the network, but also to grow an ecosystem for the platform, he continued. This includes creating blockchain explorers and peer-to-peer transaction apps.

“We’re really going to build out the user experience, and also build out the business side of things,” Zochowski said, though the immediate focus will be building and testing the network.

Zochowski compared the process he hoped Logos would undergo to NASA, noting that the space agency undergoes a strict development process when building any project.

“We’re really trying to adopt that development process,” he said, concluding:

“It’s one thing to have a white paper and it’s quite another thing to prove that everything works. Right now what we’re trying to achieve is some rigorous benchmarking and then taking a step back and making sure that what we bring to market is truly high integrity code that people can build upon.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly state that ZhenFund led the seed funding round.

Money and seedling image via Shutterstock