Kelp DAO, a liquid restaking platform, today announced the closure of a $9 million private sale round, a milestone in its mission to enhance decentralized finance (DeFi) and the restaking landscape.
SCB Limited (a proprietary trading firm based in the Bahamas) and Laser Digital (Digital asset arm of Nomura Global) led the round with a combined $3.5 million investment. Other investors in the round were 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 others.
These funds build on more than $850 million in Total Value Locked (TVL) and more than 40,000 active restakers on the platform. The funds will be utilized to enhance the platform’s capabilities, expand to other ecosystems like Solana and Bitcoin, and further innovate restaking solutions.
The funding round showcases confidence from global investors, with support from several notable angel investors in the crypto community, including Scott, Cofounder of Gitcoin; Alex, CEO Nansen; Sam K, Cofounder Frax; Marc Zeller, Aave Chan Initiative; Saurabh Sharma, Jump Crypto; Amrit, COO Altlayer; Anthony, Cofounder of Swissborg; Winslow Strong, Mr. Block.
Dheeraj Borra, Co-founder of Kelp DAO, said, “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.” Both Kelp DAO founders, Amitej Gajjala and Dheeraj Borra, expressed gratitude for the support of investors to drive Kelp DAO towards scaling new heights in restaking solutions.
Jez Mohideen, CEO of Laser Digital, added their support for the project, stating “We are very excited to support Kelp DAO and the passionate team in its journey towards building innovative restaking infrastructure solutions.”
This enthusiasm was reiterated by Jack Platts, Co-founder of Hypersphere Ventures, saying, “We’re excited by the prospect of restaking enabling more developer experimentation and use cases. Kelp’s proven team and focus on user experience is playing a key role in this restaking’s early success. We look forward to the team executing on its vision of enhancing yields and optionality for ETH stakers.”
About Kelp DAO:
Kelp DAO is one of the leading liquid restaking protocols with $850M+ in assets under management across 45,000+ restakers. Their liquid restaked token (LRT) was the first to hit the Ethereum mainnet and pioneered liquid restaking with liquid staking tokens. Currently, Kelp DAO facilitates liquid restaking for native ETH and LSTs alike across Ethereum mainnet and 8 L2 networks.
About Laser Digital:
Backed by Nomura, Laser Digital delivers scalable, robust opportunities across trading, asset management, and ventures. The team works at higher risk management standards, compliance, and commercial viability, all driven by a belief in more responsible crypto innovation. For more information, please visit laserdigital.com.
About SCB Limited:
SCB Limited is a Bahamian-based proprietary trading firm and an active participant in the digital asset ecosystem.
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