A proactive coalition of decentralized finance experts and investors known as the DeFi Alliance has announced its first fund to foster innovation in the fledgling financial sector.
The DeFi Alliance, which includes Compound Finance’s Robert Leshner, Aave’s Stani Kulechov, and Synthetix’s Kain Warwick, among others, was launched with a mission to grow the sector to a billion users by 2025.
The Alliance’s ‘Fund I’ has been seeded by members and led by founding partners along with entrepreneur Mark Cuban.
Lead investors for the $15 million fund include CMT Digital, Cumberland DRW, Susquehanna (SIG), and Cuban, who has been very active in the non-fungible token (NTF) space recently.
DeFi Startup Investments
The Alliance stated that it would be investing in a number of DeFi startups, which is where the capital will be directed.
“We will distribute capital across the DeFi and adjacent industries (such as NFTs) investing in several dozen startups each year.”
It added that the funding will allow the coalition to formalize and fuel its accelerator program which is designed to give startups the resources to build, deploy, and grow their platforms.
It also plans to launch new DeFi-focused ‘tracks’ in addition to those currently provided which assist startups with institutional liquidity, regulations, and recruiting and growth. The new tracks will be for NFTs, Asian DeFi startups, and an institutional educational program.
The DeFi Alliance has grown to more than 60 member companies and has accelerated the growth of 28 protocols and projects including 0x, dYdX, IDEX, Kyber Network, and Synthetix, it added.
Alliance member and Synthetix founder Kain Warwick acknowledged the impact early-stage support had;
“Being part of the first cohort had such a huge impact for us, helping for several key strategic partnerships that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.”
Also onboard are leading DeFi-focused venture capital allocators such as Delphi Digital, ParaFi Capital, and Kyle Samani and Tushar Jain of Multicoin Capital.
DeFi TVL Falls 28%
DeFi markets have seen monumental growth over the past year and momentum is still bullish. However, the total value locked across the ecosystem has plunged this week in the wake of the ongoing crypto market correction.
According to DappRadar, TVL is currently $36.7 billion, a fall of 28% from its all-time high of $51 billion on Feb. 21. The 25% slump in Ethereum prices this week is the primary cause as it is a dollar-based metric and the sector is heavily reliant on Ethereum.
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