Uniswap was previously in talks with NFT lending protocols, planned to address liquidity issues and “information asymmetry” surrounding NFTs.
Leading Decentralized Exchange (DEX) Uniswap
UNI
dial down
for 5.56 US dollars
is in the early stages of raising significant funds to further expand its decentralized finance (DeFi) offerings, according to a new report.
Uniswap Labs, a DeFi startup contributing to the Uniswap protocol, is engaging with various investors to raise a $100 million to $200 million capital round, TechCrunch reported on Sept. 30.
The startup is working with investors including Polychain and one of Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds as part of the next funding round, the report noted, citing two unnamed people familiar with the matter. According to the report, Uniswap would be valued at $1 billion, but the terms of the deal are subject to change as discussions surrounding the round have not been completed.
The new funding reportedly aims to bring more DeFi tools and non-fungible token (NFT) offerings to Uniswap. At the time of writing, Uniswap’s daily trading volume stood at $1.1 billion, or about 57% of all trades on global DEXs, according to data from DefiLlama. By comparison, Curve, the second largest DEX after Uniswap by volume, has around $205 million in daily volume.
The five largest DEXs by daily trading volume. Source: DeFi Lama
“Our mission is to unlock universal ownership and sharing,” said Mary-Catherine Lader, COO of Uniswap Labs. “If you can trade capacity for value and get people to join the community and trade value with your project, your business or organization, that’s a powerful way to enable more people to participate in this property,” he added.
Uniswap Labs declined to confirm or deny the report about the startup’s plans for the raise.
As Cointelegraph previously reported, Uniswap is in talks with various NFT lending protocols, with ambitious plans to address liquidity issues and “information asymmetry” surrounding NFTs. The Ethereum-based DEX has seen a growing trend despite the bear market this year.
Related: Pantera Plans to Raise $1.25 Billion in Second Blockchain Fund: Report
Launched in 2018, Uniswap completed its first funding round from US crypto-focused investment firm Paradigm in 2019. USV, Version One, Variant, Parafi Capital and others.
