DeFi startup InstaDapp raises $10 mn, to create governance token INST

Blockchain-based financial middleware services provider InstaDApp Labs has raised $10 million in a strategy funding round led by cryptocurrency focused venture capital firm Standard Crypto.

Other investors included Yearn founder Andre Cronje, DeFi Alliance, Longhash Ventures, as per a Notion note that InstaDApp Labs shared with TechCircle on Tuesday. 

InstaDApp operates as a virtual and real-time wallet for users of different decentralised finance (DeFi) options that help manage multiple applications to profit on returns across various protocols such as Ethereum.

InstaDApp’s DeFi Smart Accounts (DSA) have total value gathered (TVL) of nearly $5 billion, and is the current standard for smart contract accounts on Ethereum. TVL as a metric represents the total amount of assets locked in the various DeFi applications smart contracts.

“We are building off that strong momentum towards our next major upgrade towards being the middleware layer for DeFi. In this open infra, developers can build a wide range of applications from extreme DeFi composability between chains to crypto payment gateways,” the note from the company said.

The company is headed to launch a Governance token INST by June end, as per plans first disclosed in a blog post in April. Governance tokens help its creators with an ability to influence decisions with voting powers on a blockchain projects.

“The fund proceeds will be used to complete our transition into the middleware layer for DeFi and support the ecosystem project building on top of InstaDapp protocol,” the note added.

The company last raised a seed round of funding in 2019.

It had then raised $2.4 million from investors including blockchain-focused investment firm Pantera Capital, AngelList founder Naval Ravikant, former Coinbase CTO and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz Balaji Srinivasan, Coinbase Ventures, technology design firm IDEO CoLab, Robot Ventures, and Kyber Network founder Loi Luu.

Founded in 2018 by Sowmay Jain and Samyak Jain, InstaDapp was born off EthIndia, a hackathon for Ethereum based blockchains. Same year, it also received a grant from Kyber Network.