Rushikesh Manche, a co-founder of crypto infrastructure startup Movement Labs, filed a lawsuit against the company on July 9 in Delaware’s Court of Chancery, two months after his termination.
The case, titled Manche v. Mvmt Labs Inc., seeks a declaratory judgment under corporation law, a legal action often used to determine the rights or obligations of involved parties. Manche is represented by the law firm Ballard Spahr, with attorney David J. Margules listed on the docket. The case is currently assigned to Chancellor Paul A. Fioravanti Jr. of the Delaware Court of Chancery.
Manche did not respond to The Defiant’s request for comment. A spokesperson for Movement Labs said the firm had “no comment” on the matter.
Hefty Funding Rounds
Manche co-founded Movement Labs in 2022 alongside Cooper Scanlon and other early contributors with the goal of integrating the Move virtual machine into Ethereum environments.
Movement Labs, which is building Ethereum-compatible blockchain infrastructure using the Move programming language, rose to prominence in early 2024 after securing funding and launching ecosystem tools designed to bring Move’s safety guarantees to EVM chains.
Movement Labs has raised approximately $41.4 million to date, including a $3.4 million pre-seed round in 2023 and a $38 million Series A led by Polychain Capital in April 2024, according to Clay.com. The company was also reportedly preparing a $100 million Series B round at a projected $3 billion valuation in January, according to Fortune.
MOVE Token Sale
However, tensions boiled in April when a CoinDesk investigation linked Manche to a market-making agreement that gave Web3Port, through an entity called Rentech, access to 66 million MOVE tokens, or roughly 5% of supply. The tokens were quickly sold, triggering a price crash and raising concerns over undisclosed arrangements and governance controls.
Movement Labs first suspended Manche on May 2 “in light of ongoing events” pending a third-party governance review by Groom Lake. On May 7, the board formally terminated him, citing an undisclosed market-making arrangement involving MOVE tokens.
