The Money Roundup: Making Cents of Blockchain Fundraising News

From crypto trading to defi, the most exciting areas in blockchain fintech development and innovation are attracting serious investments from all industry corners. To introduce more tools and complementary services to the ecosystem, the recipients of these capital allocations are endeavoring to promote greater adoption by removing many existing participation obstacles and taking a more mass-market approach.

Projects Focused on Usability and User Experience Lead the Charge

Between Atani’s all-in-one trading infrastructure, Enso’s decentralized finance (defi) strategy sharing platform, Don-Key’s social yield-farming initiative, MakiSwap’s AMM for professionals, Sheesha’s Defi mutual fund, The Defiant Defi-driven informational platform, and Consensys’ sizeable cash pile, take a closer look at the impressive fundraising figures that continue to multiply as investor demand spikes.

Defi Portfolios Arrive Just in Time

As defi’s total value locked (TVL) figures continue their upward march after climbing above $50 billion, several outfits are attempting to help bridge the accessibility quandary inhibiting more widespread participation. Among them is Sheesha Finance, a UAE-based organization that has just concluded a $9.44 million capital raise through its unique liquidity generation event (LGE).

Sheesha Finance contributors will receive Liquidity Provision (LP) tokens, which can be staked for the native Sheeshatoken and grant access to valuable Defi projects without requiring direct investment, much like a mutual fund. Accordingly, investors who stake their LP tokens will automatically be eligible for pool rewards and awards in the form of Sheesha tokens while mitigating Defi portfolio risk and concurrently maximizing its potential.

The All-In-One Crypto Trading Ecosystem Closes Another Round

When it comes to resolving the crypto ecosystem’s fragmented approach to services, Atani has stood out for its comprehensive approach to trading and related activities. Fresh off a $6.25 million seed round, which brings its total capital raised to $7 million, Atani is endeavoring to build a more modern, user-friendly cryptocurrency trading platform emblematic of the all-inclusive services offered by online brokers in traditional financial markets.

Through integrations with more than 20 exchanges through API keys in its free non-custodial desktop platform, embedded tax reporting features, and tools like portfolio aggregation, advanced order types, and price alerts, Atani seeks to provide the complete suite of financial services for crypto traders. The latest fundraising will be allocated towards developing premium features like API trading that functions even when a desktop platform is offline.

Defi Traders Join Forces

Given the ever-evolving nature of defi opportunities, specifically for liquidity pooling and yield farming, Enso has set out to simplify the ecosystem for greater trader accessibility. The organization is building a destination for traders to create and find permissionless strategies, creating a capable asset management ecosystem. After raising $5 million from investors, Enso will be allocating these funds towards platform and community development, with plans to roll out the mainnet during the second quarter.

This more social approach to navigating the defi environment will help creators and followers access all manner of profitable Defi activities in a more simplified format. Traders can either invest directly in strategies or leverage the strategy creator’s token. Moreover, traders can build meta strategies, which effectively combine multiple strategies in a diversified manner.

Yield Farming Becomes More Sociable

As it seeks to replicate Etoro’s success in financial markets and cryptocurrency trading, Don-Key is developing its own social approach to yield farming. Following its successful fundraising, which saw the company attract $2.2 million from a consortium of investors, Don-Key intends to break down barriers for yield farmers seeking capital and liquidity providers hunting for opportunities.

The main problem the organization attempts to address is the current degree of stratification that accompanies yield farming. This copy-trading approach will significantly lower entry barriers between the risks, the high capital requirements, and the accompanying skillset needed to maneuver in this tricky area. Additionally, it intends to invite more participation from liquidity providers with substantially less capital while granting farmers the chance to magnify their returns.

DEX Takes the Lead in Enriching the Professional Trading Experience

Among the common complaints centered on the blockchain trading ecosystem, the high degree of fragmentation and absence of more sophisticated tools that professionals are accustomed to employing top the list. To address the latter half of the equation, Huobi Eco Chain’s biggest decentralized exchange (DEX), Makiswap, is expanding its feature set to address professional needs like analytics, advanced order types, and more sophisticated charting.

After concluding a $1.4 million funding round from a group of investors, Makiswap intends to bring more feature-rich functionality to its already popular ecosystem. It is also pursuing greater yield-farming engagement by incentivizing greater adoption amongst its large user community in the Asia-pacific region.

Defi Data and Information Collection Efforts Expand

Just like Bloomberg became the preeminent data provider of the traditional financial services industry, The Defiant is busily positioning itself as the must-have defi informational resource. What started as an industry newsletter in 2019 has quickly snowballed into a defi multimedia powerhouse that is bent on delivering quality, reputable, objective, independent reporting for borrowers, lenders, traders, liquidity providers, and yield farmers.

The $1.4 million pre-seed round raised from a group of investors will ensure that The Defiant can build a comprehensive informational portal that brings trusted data, analysis, and research to defi participants. Funds will be used to construct an accessible data platform and a web3-native media outlet focused on quality content. Together, these efforts will help newcomers gain valuable perspective on the ecosystem while experienced professionals apply its expert-level information and analysis.

Financial Giants Grow Their Exposure to Blockchain’s Prospects

As greater institutional adoption of blockchain takes hold, more traditional financial firms are seeing the writing on the wall and taking note. Big names including JP Morgan, UBS, and Mastercard are voting with their feet following a $65 million investment in Consensys, a blockchain infrastructure development firm.

Consensys, run by Ethereum Co-Founder Joseph Lubin, works to build cryptocurrency’s financial infrastructure through its software development arm. Now, with defi protocols ranking amongst Ethereum’s hottest applications, Consensys is promoting a swift merger of decentralized finance with Web3 applications in an enterprise-grade format. Taken together, this activity fits perfectly with the overall mission of accelerating consumer and enterprise blockchain adoption.

Do you think all this money pouring into crypto trading will lure in the general public? Let us know in the comments section below.