- A private token sale round has raised $9 million for Kelp DAO.
- According to co-founder Amitej Gajjala, the investment was closed in March at a $90 million FDV.
In a private token sale round, Kelp DAO, an Ethereum liquid restaking platform built on EigenLayer, raised $9 million.
With a combined investment of $3.5 million, SCB Limited, a Bahamas-based proprietary trading company, and Laser Digital, Nomura Global’s cryptocurrency division, led the round, Kelp announced on Wednesday.
Bankless Ventures, Hypersphere Ventures, Draper Dragon, DACM, Cypher Capital, GSR, HTX Ventures, and DWF Ventures were among the other investors in the round.
The round was also joined by angel investors, including Marc Zeller of Aave Chan Initiative, Saurabh Sharma of Jump Crypto, Amrit Kumar of AltLayer, Sam Kazemian of Frax Finance, and Scott Moore of Gitcoin.
According to co-founder Amitej Gajjala, Kelp finished its private token sale in March after raising money for it in February. According to Gajjala, the token’s fully diluted valuation was determined to be $90 million in February. He mentioned that at the time of the FDV, Kelp’s locked value was approximately $300 million.
Gajjala stated that although Kelp isn’t contemplating a new round right now, the FDV “may increase” if the company were to raise another one as its TVL has increased to over $961 million since then.
Timeline for KELP token launch
According to Gajjala, Kelp discreetly sold its unreleased KELP token during the round. The DAO anticipates launching the governance token “soon” and is presently conducting exchange and legal due diligence.
Gajjala clarified that the KELP token is unrelated to Kelp’s KEP token, which is a token representation of EigenLayer points. He further stated that EigenLayer’s snapshot logic renders KEP claims non-fungible, which is why Kelp suddenly halted them. Thus, it will no longer be eligible for claims.
According to Gajjala, those who have previously claimed KEP would receive EigenLayer tokens.
Plans for Solana, Bitcoin, and other expansions by Kelp
At the moment, Kelp provides a liquid restaking platform for Ethereum. It also intends to introduce liquid restaking services for other blockchains, like as Bitcoin, Solana, and BNB Chain, with the help of new investors. According to Gajjala, Kelp plans to introduce “1-2 of these chains” in the next third quarter of the year.
According to Gajjala, we intend to enable native restaking on Kelp from Bitcoin Layer 2 networks. Additionally, we are considering developing staking infrastructure on additional chains, such as Solana and BNB Chain.
Currently being evaluated are a few creative alternatives, such as the restaking of synthetic ETH and Bitcoin (based on carry trading).
Additionally, Gajjala and Dheeraj Borra, a co-founder of Kelp, operate the Stader Labs platform for liquid staking. According to DeFiLlama statistics, Stader presently has a TVL of approximately $680 million, with Polygon (MATIC) liquid staking accounting for the greatest portion at $504 million.
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.
