Bima Labs, the developer of the Bitcoin-backed stablecoin USBD, has raised $2.25 million in a seed funding round.
Bima Labs, the developer of the Bitcoin -backed stablecoin USBD, has emerged from stealth, raising $2.25 million in a seed funding round. Portal Ventures led the round, with Draper Goren Blockchain, Sats Ventures, Luxor Technology, CoreDAO, and Halo Capital participating, Bima Labs said Monday.
Angel investors, including Ryan Fang of Ankr, Brian Crain of Chorus One, Jeffrey Feng of Sei Labs and Smokey of Berachain, also joined the round. Bima was founded in April, began raising funds then, and closed the round within three months, founder and CEO Siddarth Sridhar told The Block. Sridhar said the round was structured as equity with token warrants. He declined to comment on the valuation.Bima has developed USBD, a Bitcoin-backed stablecoin, which can be minted by providing Bitcoin liquid staking and restaking tokens as collateral. Bima said it will accept collateral from several blockchains, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin scaling networks, Ethereum Virtual Machine -compatible networks and Solana. "Users can deposit their Bitcoin liquid staking tokens and liquid restaking tokens from a wide variety of providers to mint USBD from Lorenzo, Lombard, pStake, Bedrock, Acre, DLC.link, ALEX Labs BTC, and more," Sridhar said. The minted USBD stablecoin can be used for lending, borrowing, swapping and other purposes in decentralized finance applications to earn more rewards. "We envision a world of new credit, debt and hybrid use cases powered by USBD, whether you're in China, the U.S., Brazil or Europe," Sridhar said.USBD is currently live on a testnet. Sridhar said the mainnet launch will occur in the fourth quarter of this year. Bima will also launch its own governance token, BIMA, around the same time, Sridhar added. The BIMA token will be issued on an EVM-compatible chain that has yet to be decided, Sridhar said. Bima joins over a dozen projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem that have raised venture capital funding this year, as The Block reported recently. Sridhar said Bima was initially developing a stablecoin in the Ethereum ecosystem based on EigenLayer's restaking protocol but decided to pivot to Bitcoin. "Whatever was accomplished on Ethereum within 4-5 years is being done on Bitcoin within a span of 4-5 months," Sridhar said. The Bitcoin ecosystem has a higher total addressable market, more asset utilization in places like Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa, and ultimately more potential to unlock higher yield opportunities." With fresh funding, Bima plans to grow its six-person team by hiring across functions, including business development and engineering, Sridhar said. Stay updated on the latest crypto funding news and trends with my bimonthly newsletter, The Funding. It's free. Sign up here!Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures. © 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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