Staking Platform Stader Completes $4M Seed Round
- Stader Labs aggregates DeFi protocols and applications into a simplified staking solution for delegators in order to maximize their returns.
- The new funds will help the platform expand its product offering, as well as add support for a variety of blockchanns, including Solana, Ethereum, Polkadot, and others.
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Crypto staking management platform Stader Labs has raised $4 million in a seed funding round, through a Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT) sale, The Economic Times published on 7 October.
According to the publication, the seed round was led by Pantera Capital, and also saw participation from companies such as Coinbase Ventures, True Ventures, Jump Capital, Huobi Ventures, TerraForm Labs, Solana Foundation, Near Foundation, and others. The funds will help Stader further develop its simplified staking solution, which aggregates DeFi protocols and applications into one platform. The CEO of the startup, Amitej Gajjala, said in a statement:
“Through Stader, we hope to empower crypto-asset staking throughout the financial sector, making it easy and intuitive for investors to stake assets and generate returns.”
While the platform currently supports only Terra blockchain’s LUNA token for staking, Stader has plans to expand to multiple blockchains over the next few months, including support for Ethereum, Solana, Polkadot, Polygon, and Near. In order to meet its growth plans, the company also plans to double its team over the next six months.
Currently Stader is focused on serving and onboarding retail customers, but has plans to expand its services to institutional clients as well. The company also intends to build API staking solutions for fintech apps and exchanges. Paul Varadittakit, partner at Pantera Capital, commented on the company’s interest in staking technology:
“We believe that staking is critical infrastructure for the cryptocurrency ecosystem. The company will provide aggregation and decentralization to staking assets and derivatives across both protocols and validators.”
- Celsius filed a lawsuit against StakeHound, claiming that the liquid staking platform failed to return 25,000 stETH, 35,000 ETH, 66,000 DOT, and 40 million MATIC.
- The bankrupt crypto lender had exchanged these tokens for “stTokens”, but StakeHound argued it had “no obligation” to exchange these tokens for other crypto.
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- The initial vesting period for early investors and contributors of Optimism is about to end on 31 May, an event that will double the circulating supply of OP tokens.
- The event is raising concerns about the future price of the token, considering seed investors Paradigm and IDEO are sitting on a potential profit of more than 10,000%.
- The new funding will help Chaos Labs build out and expand its suit of risk and security products that can help DeFi protocols.
- The seed funding round was co-led by PayPal and Galaxy Digital, but also saw participation from including Coinbase Ventures, Polygon, Avalanche, OpenSea, Uniswap, and others.