Shiba Inu, the Ethereum-based ecosystem represented by the second-largest canine-themed token SHIB, raised $12 million in a token sale round for building its privacy-focused blockchain, according to a Monday press release.

The list of investors participating in the round are Comma 3 Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, Cypher Capital, Shima Capital, Hercules Ventures, Animoca Brands, Morningstar Ventures, Woodstock Fund, DWF Ventures, Polygon Ventures, Stake Capital, Illuminati Digital Capital, Primal Capital, Mechanism Capital and Spirit Dao, who all purchased the new network's upcoming utility and governance token TREAT.

The deal was completed by Shiba Inu Mint S.A., an ecosystem development firm incorporated in Panama, the press release added.

The fundraising came after CoinDesk reported in February that Shiba Inu developers are working with cryptography company Zama on a privacy-focused new network on top of Shibarium, the ecosystem's Ethereum-based layer-2 blockchain. The network will be powered by Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), a privacy tool that lets developers use data on untrusted domains without needing to decrypt it.

Read more: Shiba Inu Adopts Tech to Bring More Privacy to SHIB Token Holders

SHIB gained 2.2% over the past 24 hours, in line with the broad-market CoinDesk 20 Index's advance. It's the 12th-largest cryptocurrency with a nearly $16 billion market capitalization.