A new crypto startup led by former Goldman Sachs and Robinhood veterans raised $5 million in a seed funding round backed by key market makers, according to Bloomberg. The startup plans to use the funding to facilitate the development of its blockchain and accelerate DeFi transactions.<\/p>\n
Sei Labs, a crypto startup founded by former Goldman banker Jeff Feng, bagged $5 million in a seed business funding round led by Multicoin Capital. The fundraising was backed by top market makers Flow Traders and Hudson River Trading, joining other bigwigs such as Coinbase Ventures, GSR, Tangent, and Delphi Digital, among others.<\/p>\n
The startup intends to use the fresh capital to continue developing its blockchain technology which aims to speed up decentralized finance (DeFi) transactions. To achieve this, Sei Labs will launch a protocol featuring a built-in order book that allows DeFi businesses and institutional market makers to handle transactions at quicker speeds.<\/p>\n
Rapidly-growing DeFi applications, mostly powered by Ethereum or Solana, frequently face network congestion issues which prevent market makers from being able to consistently place orders. Sei Labs seeks to address this issue through its own technology, expected to launch later this year.<\/p>\n
Sei Labs\u2019 infrastructure is based on a code from the Cosmos blockchain, which the startup claims will cut transaction times to low as 600 milliseconds. This compares to the 12-14 seconds it takes to complete a transaction on Ethereum, the world\u2019s biggest protocol for developing DeFi apps.<\/p>\n
Dan Edlebeck, head of ecosystem at Sei Labs, said the current DeFi transaction speeds are \u201ca deal breaker.\u201d Given that the startup\u2019s infrastructure was built primarily for trading facilitation, its co-founder Feng hopes the protocol will overtake Solana in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause we\u2019ve built the entire chain around an order book, all of the things that Solana could but won\u2019t do because it has a ton of other games and other use cases, we\u2019re able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Jeff Feng, co-founder of Sei Labs<\/cite><\/p>\n Sei Labs\u2019 funding round comes amid a critical period for the DeFi space, which has faced serious challenges in the past year, primarily due to an increase in cyber attacks. A recent research report showed that attacks on DeFi protocols soared by a whopping 1330% in 2021.<\/p>\n Last month, Solana-based protocol Nirvana Finance suffered a flash loan attack that resulted in an exploit of almost $3.5 million. The attack led to a massive crash of Nirvana\u2019s native token ANA and stablecoin NIRV, similar to the one seen in TerraUSD and LUNA earlier this year.<\/p>\n Multicoin Capital, the leader of Sei Labs\u2019 funding, is also a major investor in Solana. Other crypto projects in its portfolio include Aaave, Binance Coin, The Graph, Helium, and more.<\/p>\n This article originally appeared on The Tokenist<\/i><\/p>\n Sponsored: Tips for Investing<\/b><\/p>\n A financial advisor can help you understand the advantages and disadvantages of investment properties. Finding a qualified financial advisor doesn’t have to be hard. SmartAsset’s free tool matches you with up to three financial advisors who serve your area, and you can interview your advisor matches at no cost to decide which one is right for you. If you’re ready to find an advisor who can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.<\/p>\n Investing in real estate can diversify your portfolio. But expanding your horizons may add additional costs. If you’re an investor looking to minimize expenses,\tconsider checking out online brokerages. They often offer low investment fees, helping you maximize your profit.<\/p>\nA Rough Year for DeFi<\/h3>\n