Radix, the open-source platform for decentralized finance (DeFi), announced today that it has completed a $2.5 million seed funding round led by Coinbase Ventures, with participation from undisclosed investors.
This is Radix’s first public funding announcement, although the company says it has been “bootstrapped and profitable” since 2018. According to a blog post, Radix plans to use the new funds to expand its team and grow its community.
“We’re extremely proud to have the backing of one of the most respected companies in crypto in Coinbase Ventures,” said Radix co-founder and CEO Piers Ridyard. “Their investment is a strong vote of confidence in our technology and team, and we look forward to working together to help realize the full potential of DeFi.”
Radix is building a “layer 1” blockchain that it says can process up to 10,000 transactions per second with “near-instant finality.” The platform is designed to be scalable and easily integrated with existing DeFi protocols.
“As protocols built on Ethereum have shown us, there is huge demand for DeFi applications,” said Coinbase Ventures Principal Lemuel Echegaray. “But Ethereum is struggling to scale.
Radix is building a solution that can process transactions much faster and at a much lower cost, which is critical for mass adoption of DeFi applications.”.
Radix says its platform is already live on mainnet and has processed more than $1 billion worth of transactions since 2018. The company plans to launch its first DeFi protocol on top of Radix later this year.
The news of Coinbase Ventures’ investment in Radix comes just days after the launch of Coinbase Custody’s staking service for Tezos (XTZ). Coinbase Custody is one of the largest institutional crypto asset custodians, with more than $1 billion in assets under management.
With Coinbase Ventures’ backing, Radix appears well positioned to compete in the rapidly growing DeFi space. It remains to be seen whether the platform can live up to its promises of scalability and efficiency, but the team seems confident that they can deliver on their vision.