Cryptocurrencies
DeFi Platform Ondo Finance Raises $20 Million
With decentralized finance continuing to capture interest, a DeFi startup has just announced a significant early-stage funding. This week, Ondo revealed that it had raised $20 million. The Series A was led by the Peter Thiel-founded firm Founder Fund as well as Pantera Capital. Other participants include Coinbase Ventures, GoldenTree, Wintermute, Steel Perlot, Tiger Global, and Flow Traders.
Previously, Ondo closed a $4 million seed round last year, which was also led by Pantera. With the latest funds, the company plans to expand its team and fuel its multi-chain expansion.
Ondo is a platform that offers a number of DeFi products that describes itself as a decentralized investment bank. In particular, the company has aimed to attract mainstream investors and bring them into the world of DeFi. To do that, they state that their platform “repackages these assets into easily understood risk/reward offerings, and then matches and offers these assets to both institutional and retail investors.” On that note, Ondo plans to launch a number of new features in the coming months, including vaults that bundle yields from algorithmic stablecoins. Additionally, the platform says it will be expanding compatibility to include other protocols, such as Curve and Convex.
Commenting on the company’s success to date, Ondo Finance’s founder and CEO Nathan Allman said in a statement, “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.” He added, “We’re excited for some new product launches that will make it much easier for passive investors to obtain broad exposure to DeFi yields at a customized risk level.”
Meanwhile, Pantera Capital partner Paul Veradittakit said of Ondo, “The growth of algorithmic stablecoins and expansion of DeFi from Ethereum to other blockchains has led to tremendous yield opportunities but with greater complexity and risks. Ondo will make it possible for investors to get passive exposure to this increasingly scattered but abundant yield while receiving downside protection or enhanced returns.”
Even with the decentralized finance sector being as hot as it is right now, a $20 million Series A is still fairly impressive. Furthermore, Ondo’s latest round speaks to another theme that has emerged in FinTech VC recently: a growing number of significant early-round raises. Now, with some major players behind them and no shortage of new ideas for features, the wind definitely seems to be at Ondo Finance’s back as they look to move forward.
