ETtechMumbai: Decentralised finance (DeFi) startup Instadapp has raised $10 million in funding from venture capital firm Standard Crypto, and strategic partners, including Yearn founder Andre Cronje, DeFi Alliance, Longhash Ventures, among others.
The company had in 2019 raised a seed round from entrepreneur investors Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan, crypto-focused hedge fund Pantera Capital and crypto exchange Coinbase. The latest round, which is in lieu of Instadapp's soon-to-be-launched tokens, brings the total funds raised to $12.4 million.
The firm builds a protocol that simplifies how users interact with various DeFi protocols. DeFi is a blockchain-based form of finance that does not have central financial intermediaries.
"We are trying to abstract away all the complexities that DeFi have right now," co-founder Sowmay Jain told ET. "Our goal is to make it unified and standardised so that users just have one account to manage for different protocols."
Jain, 23, said that the company wants to simplify the experience for users who may find it hard to keep up with the ever-evolving nature of the DeFi industry. He co-founded Instadapp in 2018, with Samyak Jain, 21, during ETHIndia hackathon that promotes the use of Ethereum blockchain to build decentralised applications.
Sowmay Jain said that the startup will use the funds to expand its team of 15 employees, fund projects, and product development. While India is seen as a strong developer base, it lags on the investment front compared to the rest of the world, he said. “I hope the investor interest in the space will mature over time. And as we see more and more supportive regulations, things will be quite strong.”
Instadapp will launch its governance token INST by June-end, a part of which will go to investors.
The company had in 2019 raised a seed round from entrepreneur investors Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan, crypto-focused hedge fund Pantera Capital and crypto exchange Coinbase. The latest round, which is in lieu of Instadapp's soon-to-be-launched tokens, brings the total funds raised to $12.4 million.
The firm builds a protocol that simplifies how users interact with various DeFi protocols. DeFi is a blockchain-based form of finance that does not have central financial intermediaries.
"We are trying to abstract away all the complexities that DeFi have right now," co-founder Sowmay Jain told ET. "Our goal is to make it unified and standardised so that users just have one account to manage for different protocols."
Jain, 23, said that the company wants to simplify the experience for users who may find it hard to keep up with the ever-evolving nature of the DeFi industry. He co-founded Instadapp in 2018, with Samyak Jain, 21, during ETHIndia hackathon that promotes the use of Ethereum blockchain to build decentralised applications.
Sowmay Jain said that the startup will use the funds to expand its team of 15 employees, fund projects, and product development. While India is seen as a strong developer base, it lags on the investment front compared to the rest of the world, he said. “I hope the investor interest in the space will mature over time. And as we see more and more supportive regulations, things will be quite strong.”
Instadapp will launch its governance token INST by June-end, a part of which will go to investors.