On Thursday, Stader Labs, a cryptocurrency firm that builds decentralized finance products, or DeFi, for proof-of-stakes blockchain networks, announced that it has raised $12.5 million in a private sale. The funding round was led by Three Arrows Capital with additional participation from Blockchain.com, Accomplice, DACM, GoldenTree Asset Management, Accel, Amber, 4RC, Figment, and Ira Investors. This puts Staber Labs at a valuation of $450 million.
Amitej Gajjala, CEO of Stader Labs, issued the following comment regarding the development:
“This capital will be strategically deployed to accelerate our cross-chain expansion, as well as nurture our growing ecosystem of third parties developing betting applications with Stader’s decentralized infrastructure.”
The two main products of Stader Labs are Stake Pools and liquid staking. Stake Pools allow retail and institutional investors to earn rewards for staking on pre-defined baskets of validators grouped by performance. For its part, liquid staking allows users to receive liquid tokens (LunaX) by locking up their holdings, which can then be deposited into other DeFi protocols to cultivate returns. It is a derivative of the original token that can lead to compound rewards as well as compound risks.
According to Kyle Davies, co-founder of Three Arrows Capital, there are currently more than 15,000 unique portfolios being staked by Stader Labs, with a total value locked of about $500 million. Its protocols were launched last November.
Stader Labs currently only supports staking on the Terra (LUNA) blockchain, but has plans to expand it to Solana (SOL), Ethereum (ETH), Fantom, Hedera, and Polygon (MATIC). Do Kwon, Founder and CEO of Terra, commented:
“These tools will bring Stader closer to its vision of being the most convenient and secure non-custodial betting platform, and a critical partner in the future of finance thanks to its built-in decentralization for layer solutions.”