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Ithaca Finance, a decentralized finance (defi) startup building composable options infrastructure, has raised $2.5 million in a pre-seed funding round.
The round was co-led by cryptocurrency trading firm Cumberland and venture capital firm Wintermute Ventures.
Ithaca aims to bring more options trading volume on-chain and meet the growing demand for structured products in the cryptocurrency market.
Now, in Arbitrum testing, the protocol uses an algorithmic market maker model to bootstrap liquidity.
Commenting, Ithaca CEO Dimitrios Kavvathas said:
“We are truly grateful for the support of our investors and look forward to revolutionizing the digital asset options trading landscape with their guidance and partnership.”
Kavvathas previously held leadership roles at Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and cryptocurrency lender Amber Group. Ithaca’s technology team also has experience in traditional finance and cryptocurrency startups.
Ithaca says that by splitting options contracts into basic building blocks, it can shorten the path to institutional-scale options trading volume across blockchains. Permissionless infrastructure aggregates liquidity and enables risk transfer across assets and time periods.
Following an invitation-only launch, Ithaca plans to release the protocol later in the first quarter of 2024. The funding round also included support from GHAF Capital, Room40 Ventures and several angel investors.
The planned launch comes at a time of recovery after the DeFi decline in 2022. To date, DeFi value locked (TVL) is over $56 billion.
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