Ondo Finance raises $20m Series A to accelerate DeFi adoption

By Edlyn Cardoza

Ondo Finance has raised a $20 million Series A to accelerate the adoption of DeFi among mainstream investors. This latest round of funding was led by Founders Fund, the venture capital firm founded by Peter Thiel, and Pantera Capital. The funding will allow Ondo to build out its team and support new product launches, including its multi-chain expansion. Strategic investors joining the round also included Coinbase Ventures, GoldenTree, Wintermute, Steel Perlot (Michelle Ritter / Eric Schmidt), Tiger Global, and Flow Traders.

Ondo Finance is building a decentralized investment bank focused on connecting stakeholders in the emerging DeFi ecosystem, including decentralized autonomous organisations (DAOs), institutions, and retail investors. As its first offering, the company built a novel primitive for decentralized structured products that offer a choice between downside protection and enhanced returns.

The company quickly expanded to other use cases, such as its Liquidity-as-a-Service (LaaS) offering, which matches DAOs with underwriters to provide liquidity for a DAO’s native token so that its users can easily trade its token in decentralized exchanges. Ondo has partnered with more than ten DAOs, including Terra, Frax, and Fei, and has seen more than $200 million in liquidity deposited into its protocol. With its rapid organic community growth and product adoption, Ondo is ready to begin decentralizing governance with its upcoming launch of the ONDO token and related DAO.

“We’ve been delighted to see the demand for Ondo’s community vaults and Liquidity-as-a-Service offerings, which have really been a simple MVP with no liquidity mining or other incentives from us”, says Nathan Allman, Founder and CEO of Ondo Finance. “We’re excited for some new product launches that will make it much easier for passive investors to obtain broad exposure to DeFi yields at a customized risk level.”

Over the next few months, Ondo plans to launch several additional products to increase its offerings’ breadth, usefulness, and accessibility. These include vaults that bundle yields from algorithmic stablecoins and vaults that aggregate yield across different blockchains.

“The growth of algorithmic stablecoins and expansion of DeFi from Ethereum to other blockchains has led to tremendous yield opportunities but with greater complexity and risks,” says Paul Veradittakit, Partner at Pantera Capital. “Ondo will make it possible for investors to get passive exposure to this increasingly scattered but abundant yield while receiving downside protection or enhanced returns.”

These new vaults will help build momentum for the company to grow its current ecosystem and user base. Ondo is expanding its product compatibility with other protocols such as Curve and Convex to increase demand. Ondo seeks to make its offerings more accessible through integrations with crypto exchanges, web2 FinTechs and custodians to broaden capital supply.

“We’re incredibly impressed with the early success of Ondo’s structured products and we’re excited to see the team expand its offering,” says Napoleon Ta, Partner at Founders Fund. “Built by a world-class team at the intersection of crypto and institutional finance, Ondo is well-positioned to be a preeminent player in the continued ascent of DeFi into mainstream adoption.”