To accelerate its growth and especially to offer products dedicated to institutional investors, DEX aggregator 1inch has just raised $175 million. In the near future, 1inch plans to launch a new protocol and also plans to give more use cases to its eponymous token
1inch consolidates its leadership position
Decentralized exchange aggregator (DEX) 1inch has just closed its Series B round of funding, raising $175 million.
Led by Amber Group, this substantial fundraising round brought together capital from over 50 investors including Celsius, Nexo, Alameda Research, VanEck, Gemini Frontier Fund and Jane Street.
1inch sold a portion of its tokens at a discounted price of $1.50 per token as part of the deal, with 1INCH tokens trading at around $4.20 at the time of writing.
According to 1inch Network’s press release, the company intends to use its new funds to increase its expertise in adapting to the regulatory changes underway in the decentralised finance (DeFi) industry, particularly in Europe and the US.
The funds raised will also be used to design new protocols for the 1inch ecosystem, as well as to expand the usefulness of the 1INCH token. In addition, 1inch Network plans to double the size of its team over the next few years.
A key element of the next phase of DeFi will be to provide investors with seamless access to liquidity across different protocols and blockchain. 1inch has one of the best teams at the forefront of building bridges between fragmented liquidity pools, enabling cost savings and transaction optimisation,” commented Tiantian Kullander, co-founder of Amber Group.
1inch Network, a crypto project behind the popular decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator 1inch app, announced Wednesday that it has closed a $175 million Series B funding round.
The project is looking to serve institutional customers, including banks and hedge funds.
– Tosin Olugbenga (@TosinOlugbenga) December 1, 2021
Next step, attract institutional investors
Like many DeFi projects, 1inch is looking to make itself accessible to institutional investors. To do this, 1inch is looking to move into Europe and get a licence there, before moving into the US market.
Since 1inch has been geolocating US IP addresses, it has become much more regulator-friendly, even if the crypto community is not necessarily happy with these methods.
In addition, 1inch Pro, a protocol reserved for its future institutional customers, will be launched in late 2022 or early 2023 to meet the high demand.
1inch Pro will provide pools specifically dedicated to institutions and will only allow participants verified by KYC (identity verification) and AML (anti-money laundering) controls.
While continuing to cater to the existing DeFi audience with cutting-edge products, 1inch also aims to become a gateway for institutions that want to be part of the DeFi world,” said Sergej Kunz, co-founder of 1inch Network.
