Kelp DAO, a liquid restaking platform, has successfully closed a $9 million private sale round, as per the information shared with Finbold on May 22.
Marking a significant milestone on Kelp’s journey to revolutionize decentralized finance (DeFi), the investment round was spearheaded by SCB Limited, a proprietary trading firm from the Bahamas, and Laser Digital, the digital asset arm of Nomura Global, contributing a combined $3.5 million.
Other notable participants included Bankless Ventures, Hypersphere, Draper Dragon, DACM, Cypher Capital, ArkStream, Cluster Capital, GSR, Longhash, Side Door Ventures, NOIA Capital, HTX Ventures, Avid3, ViaBTC Capital, DWF Ventures, Coinseeker, and many more.
Picks for you
Expanding the Kelp ecosystem
With the fresh infusion of capital, Kelp DAO aims to bolster its platform, which already boasts over $850 million in Total Value Locked (TVL) and a community of more than 40,000 active users.
The funds will be used to enhance platform capabilities, expand into new ecosystems like Solana (SOL) and Bitcoin (BTC), and drive further innovation in restaking solutions.
The funding round reflects strong confidence from global investors and features support from prominent figures in the crypto community, such as Scott, co-founder of Gitcoin; Alex, CEO of Nansen; Sam K, co-founder of Frax; Marc Zeller of the Aave Chan Initiative; Saurabh Sharma of Jump Crypto; Amrit, COO of Altlayer; Anthony, co-founder of Swissborg; and Winslow Strong of Mr. Block.
Dheeraj Borra, co-founder of Kelp DAO, expressed excitement about the fundraising success, stating:
“This fundraise propels our expansion in the market and sharpens our focus on building customer centric solutions. It’s truly thrilling to have our investors share that vision.”
Borra’s colleagues, such as Jez Mohideen, CEO of Laser Digital, and Jack Platts, co-founder of Hypersphere Ventures, echoed his enthusiasm, emphasising the passion behind Kelp’s team and expressing excitement for the prospect of restaking enabling more developer experimentation and use cases.
Fueling investor confidence in DeFi restaking
Kelp’s proven team and focus on user experience is playing a key role in early success of restaking.
Investors are thus looking forward to the team executing its vision of enhancing yields and optionality for Ethereum (ETH) stakers.
This successful funding round not only highlights the growing interest in DeFi and restaking but also sets the stage for Kelp DAO to continue its pioneering work in the field.