- Portal Ventures led a $2.25 million seed round that was raised by Bima Labs.
- The team has created USBD, a stablecoin backed by Bitcoin.
The creator of USBD, a stablecoin backed by Bitcoin BTC +3.13%, Bima Labs, has come out of stealth and raised $2.25 million in a seed investment round.
Bima Labs reported on Monday that Portal Ventures led the funding round, with participation from Draper Goren Blockchain, Sats Ventures, Luxor Technology, CoreDAO, and Halo Capital. The investment was also joined by angel investors Ryan Fang of Ankr, Brian Crain of Chorus One, Jeffrey Feng of Sei Labs, and Smokey of Berachain.
According to creator and CEO Siddarth Sridhar, Bima was established in April, started raising money at that time, and concluded the round in three months. The financing, according to Sridhar, was set up as equity with token warrants. Regarding the valuation, he remained silent.
Bima Labs: What is it?
Bima has developed USBD, a stablecoin backed by Bitcoin. It may be created by depositing Bitcoin liquid tokens for staking and restaking as collateral. Bima said that it will accept collateral from other blockchains, including as Solana, Ethereum ETH +4.05% Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible networks, Bitcoin, and Bitcoin scaling networks.
According to Sridhar, users can mint USBD from a number of providers, including Lorenzo, Lombard, pStake, Bedrock, Acre, DLC.link, ALEX Labs BTC, and more, by depositing their Bitcoin liquid staking tokens (LSTs) and liquid restaking tokens (LRTs).
To increase benefits, the newly created USBD stablecoin can be utilized for decentralized finance applications such as lending, borrowing, swapping, and other activities.
Whether you live in China, the United States, Brazil, or Europe, we see a world of new credit, debt, and hybrid use cases powered by USBD, according to Sridhar.
Launch of the USBD mainnet
Right now, USBD is operational on a testnet. The mainnet debut is scheduled for this year’s fourth quarter, according to Sridhar. According to Sridhar, Bima will also launch BIMA, its own governance token, at the same time. According to Sridhar, a chain that is compatible with EVMs will be chosen before the BIMA token is issued.
Bima has obtained venture capital funding, joining over a dozen other initiatives in the Bitcoin ecosystem. According to Sridhar, Bima originally intended to create a stablecoin within the Ethereum ecosystem using EigenLayer’s restaking protocol, but ultimately made the decision to switch to Bitcoin.
According to Sridhar, in a matter of 4-5 months, Bitcoin will do what Ethereum did in 4-5 years. The Bitcoin ecosystem offers more potential to uncover better yield opportunities in the long run, as well as a larger total addressable market and higher asset usage in regions such as North Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.
With new investment, Bima intends to hire personnel from several departments, such as business development and engineering, to expand its current six-person team, according to Sridhar.
Disclaimer : This article was created for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. An asset’s past performance does not predict its future returns. Before making an investment, please conduct your own research, as digital assets like cryptocurrencies are highly risky and volatile financial instruments.
