Exclusive: Blockchain Startup Unbound Finance Raises $5.8 Mn From Pantera Capital, AngelList Founder And Others

Delhi NCR-based blockchain startup Unbound Finance has raised $5.8 Mn in its first funding round led by global VC firms like Pantera Capital, Arrington XRP Capital, CMS Holdings, LedgerPrime, LD Capital, Future Perfect Ventures, Hashed, TRGC.

The funding round also saw the participation of founders of AngelList, Enjin, Polygon, Kyber, Harmony, Dao Maker, DFYN, Frontier, and Tomochain.

Speaking on the fundraise, founder and CEO Tarun Jaswani told Inc42, “It truly reflects the spirit of DeFi. Our VC funds and Angels are in the US, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Philippines and many other countries. It was a rare scenario where investors were willing to invest much more; and, we had to literally decline their offers.”

Founded by Tarun Jaswani in 2020, Unbound Finance is a decentralised platform built as a derivative layer over existing automated market makers (AMMs).

The popularity of Decentralised finance (DeFi) has soared over the last couple of years. The increasing total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols is a solid proof of the growth the DeFi sector has experienced.

The AMMs are currently sitting on over $40 Bn worth liquidity pools which the founder said his startup will help unlock and let users mint the coins that they want through its cross-chain protocol.

The funding will be used to propel the development and growth of Unbound protocol. The company intends to use the funds for the expansion of the team, audits, adoption, liquidity provision for pools and R&D hyper focused towards the AMM space. The influx of capital will also allow fueling new initiatives including the aggregation of Uniswap V3 with our platform, the founder said.

DeFi Treasury For Liquidity Pool Tokens

Unbound’s protocol leverages liquidity lying idle in the wallets of AMM liquidity providers (LPs) and enables interest-free crypto loans in the form of Unbound’s native stablecoin $UND and other synthetic assets. Currently, Unbound supports AMMs like Uniswap, Balancer, MooniSwap, Curve and Kyber. Unbound has also entered into strategic partnerships with multi-chain EVM networks like Binance Smart Chain, Polygon and Harmony to support PancakeSwap, DFYN, SeeSwap and other AMMs across multiple blockchains.

The company has integrated Uniswap Version 3 and is now in the process of launching aggregator contracts for concentrated liquidity provision on V3. “These doorway contracts will be then used in future to collateralise the NFT position, enabling further liquidity into UND,” the founder of the blockchain startup said.

Its ‘DeFi Treasury For Liquidity Pool Tokens’, went live with its first testnet in December 2020 and launched its final Zeta testnet in April 2021.

On Unbound’s role in the world of AMMs, Tarun Jaswani clarified, “We could have easily built our own AMMs. But, we decided to build an aggregator on top of it. Today, we are aggregating liquidity not just from Uniswap but also from Balancer, DFYN, or Curve or Mooniswap. We have been able to do it, because it is a composite layer. We are putting them all together, and then minting more synthetic assets on top.”