Overview

• Jito raised $50 million via a private token sale to a16z crypto, which received a locked allocation of JTO in what Jito called its largest single‑investor commitment.
• The Jito Foundation said the capital will fund validator technology, the staking protocol, developer tooling, and further buildout of the Block Assembly Marketplace.
• JTO rose a few percent intraday after the announcement, reflecting a modest market reaction to the investment.
• Jito runs core Solana infrastructure including JitoSOL, a liquid staking token with multi‑billion‑dollar scale, and MEV/block‑assembly services tailored to the network’s high throughput.
• The deal extends a16z’s recent pattern of sizable token purchases, following LayerZero and EigenLayer allocations, and arrives alongside institutional steps such as VanEck’s proposed JitoSOL ETF filing.