Leading decentralized crypto trading protocol, Uniswap Labs has raised $165 million in its Series B funding round. The crypto trading protocol announced the completion of the round in a Thursday tweet on its verified handle. According to the announcement, the funding round was led by Polychain Capital.
Notably, other participants in the round include a16z crypto, Paradigm, SV Angel, and Variant. According to Uniswap Labs, the latest funding places its valuation at $1.66 billion, thereby emerging as the largest decentralized finance project. Now, the crypto trading protocol aims to focus on products, particularly as the “crypto ecosystem continues to grow and thrive beyond what any one company can do on their own.”
Recently, its governance community voted to create the Uniswap Foundation. As mandated, the created foundation runs to contribute to Uniswap’s decentralized development. More so, it helps to avail a minimum of $60 million in grants to community projects in the next few years.
Uniswap not profitable at the moment – Adams
Hayden Adams, the founder of Uniswap, boasted that the funding round and Uniswap’s popularity validates the potential of decentralized projects. According to Adams, “the industry has started to prove itself and we’re seeing the value of it, especially in this bear market when a lot of centralized infrastructure failed, and a lot of decentralized entities prevailed.”
Adams added that Uniswap Labs does not bring profits at the moment. However, the founder said the protocol aims to harness its Series B funding to widen its product offerings. According to him, Uniswap intends to build an NFT aggregator, capable of unlocking “new interactions between tokens and NFTs.” He expressed optimism that the company will become financially sustainable in next few years.
Additionally, Uniswap Labs, according to Adams wants to focus on offering services capable of enhancing the accessibility of web3 by non-technical users. Extolling the virtues of decentralization, the founder said the feature helps in reducing the rate of devastating hacking incidents. He reflected on how the increasing rates of hacking has fermented financial and reputational harm to the crypto industry. According to him, most hacks, in recent times were targeted at centralized projects.
Through Uniswap Labs, Adams aims to continuously challenge the so-called Web2 business model. According to him, “web2 is about competing to control users, while Web 3 has an opportunity to compete by empowering users.”
Meanwhile, he launched the crypto trading protocol in 2018. Currently, the Securities and Exchange Commission investigation is investigating the company over possible non-compliance to regulations. However, its representative recently affirmed Uniswap’s commitment to complying with the law and regulations governing the industry.
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