Kategorie: Crypto Business

Ondo Finance, a crypto startup that seeks to build a decentralised investment bank as well as offer customised financial products to both institutional and retail investors, has secured $20 million in its Series A funding round.

The funding was co-led by Founders Fund, a venture capital firm founded by Peter Thiel and Pantera Capital, a blockchain-focused institutional asset manager. Coinbase Ventures, GoldenTree, Tiger Global, Wintermute, Flow Traders, and Steel Perlot joined the round as strategic investors, Ondo Finance noted in a press release.

In August 2021, Ondo announced a $4 million seed round led by Pantera Capital.

Ondo Finance eyes more DeFi products

The startup will use the funds to build its team as part of broader plans to accelerate the adoption of decentralized finance (DeFi) within the mainstream investment sector.

As well, the firm wants to launch new products and enhance its suite of existing product offerings, including decentralised structured products and Liquidity-as-a-Service offering.

“Vaults”, which are bundles of DeFi products tempered with different risk levels and through which investors get to hedge against downside risks, have become very popular. Ondo wants to provide more products and access.

“We’ve been delighted to see the demand for Ondo’s community vaults and Liquidity-as-a-Service offerings, which have really been a simple MVP with no liquidity mining or other incentives from us“, said Nathan Allman, the startup’s founder and CEO.

He added that the team is eyeing new products that make it even easier for passive investors seeking exposure to DeFi yields. 

According to Allman, the new products will come with customised risk levels and will include vaults for algorithmic stablecoins and blockchains.

The post Founders Fund, Pantera co-lead $20M investment in Ondo Finance appeared first on Coin Journal.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said in a blog post on Tuesday that the “duplicate roles and job functions” were among the reasons the company decided to release the employees.

Robinhood has announced that 9% of its full-time staff have been let go amid the need to downsize after a rapid expansion over the past couple of years.

The trading app, founded in 2013, says its employee count grew exponentially through 2020 and the first half of 2021. As customer demand increased due to the pandemic lockdowns, fiscal stimulus and low interest rates, the firm’s full-time staff jumped from 700 to 3,800.

Duplicate roles was a factor

Vlad Tenev, the firm’s CEO, said in a blog post on Tuesday that rapid growth had inevitably led to “duplicate roles and job functions, and more layers and complexity than are optimal.”

It’s these factors that the company considered as they made the difficult decision to let go of the employees, he added.

“We determined that making these reductions to Robinhood’s staff is the right decision to improve efficiency, increase our velocity, and ensure that we are responsive to the changing needs of our customers.”

Robinhood keen on delivering on strategic goals

According to the CEO, the layoffs are a “deliberate step” towards ensuring the company continues to deliver on its strategic goals. It’s also intended to see it further its objectives in democratizing finance.

“We will continue to accelerate our product momentum through 2022 and will introduce key new products across Brokerage, Crypto, and Spending/Saving,” he wrote.

During the last two years, Robinhood has grown its net user accounts from 5 million to 22 million. Revenue also increased from approximately $278 million in 2019 to more than $1.8 billion in 2021. GameStop and Dogecoin have been among the top two most traded assets on the trading app.

The company, which went public last year, reportedly has over $6 billion in cash on its balance. The US-based firm will release its Q1 earnings results on Thursday.

Robinhood shares fell sharply following the announcement, with the company’s stock losing 3.75% by market’s close.

The post Robinhood cuts its full-time staff by 9%, shares fall sharply appeared first on Coin Journal.

SNACKCLUB, a Web3 startup that’s the sister company to Brazil’s gaming giant LOUD, has raised $9 million in a seed funding round, according to an announcement shared on Tuesday, 26 April.

Venture firm and gaming publisher Animoca Brands, as well as Ascensive Assets, Jump Crypto, Formless Capital, Mechanism, and OP Crypto among other investors contributed to the round, SNACKCLUB said in its press release.

Building a DAO for gamers

According to the company, the funds will go into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), with the main goal being to reimagine ownership within the gaming ecosystem.

The gaming provider seeks to help players benefit more from the massive investment they put into games, especially around possession and control over a game’s currency, equipment, or assets as associated with their character.

SNACKCLUB, building on the experience of LOUD, wants to make gaming beneficial ventures for players, especially when it comes to the motivation to invest time in such activities.

“SNACKCLUB will elevate that commitment by investing in the technology, platform, and publishing partners that will bring the potential of blockchain gaming to our community. We have a long way to go, but these investments will change the how and why behind a gamer’s decision to play,” said Jean Ortega, the co-founder of LOUD. Ortega is also the managing partner of SNACKCLUB.

LOUD reportedly has a combined global follower base of 300 million, a community that SNACKCLUB hopes ti tap into when it launches.

The platform however is focused on nurturing its 30-person team. Other immediate plans include establishing its governance and conducting due diligence on what investment prospects to prioritize.

The post SNACKCLUB secures $9M in Seed funding to boost blockchain gaming in developing countries appeared first on Coin Journal.

Maple Solana plans to grow its fund pool to $300 million by end of 2022, and offer up to $1 billion in uncollateralized loans.

Maple Finance, a decentralized corporate debt marketplace for institutional borrowers, has expanded its access to the Solana as it looks to enable funding of projects built on the smart contracts blockchain.  

The marketplace, also available on Ethereum, is the first multi-chain capital platform. It’s also the pioneering institutionally-focused uncollateralized lending for projects in the Solana ecosystem.

Scaling the Solana ecosystem

According to Maple Solana, the project starts with a $45 million pool for uncollateralized loans. The team will then look to grow this over the next eight months to bring it to $300 million by the end of the year.

Quinn Barry, the head of Maple Solana, said their goal is to help scale the Solana ecosystem via on-chain capital-market infrastructure.

“Over the next three months, we expect to bring over $300 million of liquidity to Solana. We will soon welcome another credit-expert to the platform, and share more details on how liquidity protocols are already using Maple’s infrastructure as a launchpad onto Solana,” he added.

Sid Powell, the CEO and co-founder of Maple Finance commented:

“Building the first multi-chain capital market solution has and will continue to attract high quality lenders and borrowers, create unprecedented growth opportunities for innovators building on Solana, and enable the entire industry to thrive.” 

Maple Solana targets issuing $1 billion worth of loans, the crypto-capital network that also provides the service on Ethereum said in an announcement. There are also plans to launch SYRUP, a governance token that will offer the same functionality as the Ethereum-based MPL token.

X-Margin is the first pool delegate

As part of the milestone towards transforming capital markets via technology in the Solana ecosystem, Maple Solana has secured the corporation of data-driven lender X-Margin.

The firm will be the first pool delegate, with its lending business having attracted huge deposits from three major partners. Financial services and payments technology provider Circle deposited $10 million while digital assets manager Coinshares added $20 million.

X-Margin also received $10 million from Solana natives, and is open to deposits of up to $5 million in USDC to make the initial $45 million pool.

Lending to crypto blue-chips

The X-Margin team will leverage its privacy-preserving credit infrastructure and underwriting expertise alongside Maple’s on-chain credit facility to offer credit to some of the biggest borrowers in the crypto space.

Darshan Vaidya, the CEO of X-Margin said:

“Maple’s multi-chain infrastructure continues to lead the way for institutional credit infrastructure in crypto. X-Margin’s privacy preserving credit platform is a natural fit for this, helping to scale a more data-driven and transparent credit market in DeFi and CeFi.” 

Borrowers will have to adhere to Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML). This is part of regulatory compliance, and to ensure lending is advanced to reputable projects.

The post Maple Finance launches on Solana with $45M to support ecosystem growth appeared first on Coin Journal.

 Portal, the Bitcoin-built cross-chain Layer-2 DEX network, has announced via a press release that it will be collaborating with High Circle Ventures’ blockchain-based asset marketplace HighCircleX to facilitate pre-IPO companies to tokenize shares on the Bitcoin blockchain.

The collaboration presents a first of its kind opportunity for pre-IPO companies to tokenize equity in private and create the provision of liquidity to illiquid assets. Further, companies will continue to benefit from the “many layers of application” that Portal envisions to build on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Some of the most-desired pre-IPO companies including Klarna, SpaceX, Automation Anywhere, Epic Games, and Cross River Bank will allow for their ownership interest to be tokenised and traded under the collaboration, the press release stated.

The partnership is a crucial breakthrough in achieving Portal’s vision of incorporating real-world use cases to Bitcoin

Portal’s Executive Chairman Dr. Chandra Duggirala explained the importance of the partnership by stating that the company will make way for the tokenization of many more financial assets to the blockchain:

“Although these assets are not bearer assets like Bitcoin, having both digital asset securities and non-security digital assets available through a simple interface for users who meet accreditation investor criteria marks the beginning of merging Bitcoin ecosystem with mainstream finance.” 

This will further fix the problem of liquidity fragmentation across many different exchanges and applications, he added.

Hemanth Golla, the CEO of HighcircleX, commented on the partnership by saying:

“HCX makes it a breeze for investors to invest in private equity offerings. It gives members instant access to fractional ownership of stocks in the hottest companies. We believe that tokenization and fast, easy tradability that come with it will unlock and expand this market tremendously.

For Portal users, the partnership brings in seamless access to both tokenized securities and non-security digital assets from one wallet. On the other hand, for HCX, the partnership will allow the elimination of limitations such as illiquidity, lock-in periods and value uncertainty that are inherent in private markets and increase the available investor base.

The post HCX and Portal to help tokenize pre-IPO companies on the Bitcoin blockchain appeared first on Coin Journal.