South Korea’s blockchain fund Hashed said Wednesday it has invested in a project to boost the Ethereum blockchain system’s scalability to accelerate the development of decentralized applications across industries.

Called Skale Network, the project has raised $17.1 million so far to launch its mainnet by the fourth quarter of this year. Various accelerators worldwide have participated in the project, including ConsenSys Labs, Multicoin Capital, Recruit Holdings and Winklevoss Capital.

According to Hashed, Skale Network is designed to help app developers by providing Ethereum’s Layer 2 solution with faster speeds and lower costs. The company also said it would participate as a validator to accelerate transaction verification by operating nodes. 

“Scalability has been a weakness in the Ethereum ecosystem... and Skale Network is a unique solution that can boost the ecosystem’s scalability,” Hashed CEO Simon Kim said. “We expect it will enhance mass adoption as developers can use it for decentralized apps in gaming and finance.”

Improving scalability has long been a challenge for public blockchain systems like Ethereum, as their transactions are limited compared to other platforms. Ethereum recently introduced a Layer 2 solution to address the scalability issue.