Uniswap Labs has raised $165 million in a new funding round as the parent firm of the world’s largest decentralized exchange looks to broaden its offerings.
The Series B funding was led by Polychain Capital, the startup said. The news confirms a TechCrunch scoop from late last month that said that Uniswap Labs was looking to raise between $100 million to $200 million and was engaging with Polychain.
Uniswap Labs said it is valued at $1.66 billion in the new funding. Existing backers a16z crypto, Paradigm, SV Angel and Variant also participated in the new round.
The decentralized exchange commands 64% of all DEX volumes, according to DeFi Llama. And the exchange protocol’s token has a market cap of nearly $5 billion despite the market downturn. (During the peak bull cycle last year, Uni’s market cap exceeded $22.5 billion.)
In recent months, Uniswap Labs has shared plans to add “several new products.” One of the new offerings will allow customers to trade NFTs on Uniswap from a number of marketplaces and another is a wallet, according to people familiar with the matter.
“Now, Uniswap Labs is bringing the powerful simplicity and security that has defined the Uniswap Protocol to even more people across the world by investing in our web app and developer tools, launching NFTs, moving into mobile — and more!” the firm said in a blog post.
“As Uniswap Labs focuses on products, a much broader ecosystem continues to grow and thrive beyond what any one company can do on their own. As an example, the governance community recently voted to create the Uniswap Foundation, which will contribute to the Protocol’s decentralized development and give at least $60 million in grants to community projects over the next few years,” it added.
The funding — one of the largest Series B for a crypto firm this year — comes at a time when the market downturn has eroded investors’ appetite for writing new checks. VC investment in crypto startups declined 37% year-on-year in the quarter that ended in September to $4.44 billion, the industry’s lowest level in more than a year, according to PitchBook.
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