Amidst the scarcity of funding, Uniswap Labs – the holding co. of Ethereum-based decentralized exchange Uniswap – has managed to raise $165 million at a $1.66 billion valuation in a Series B funding round.
The funding round was led by crypto-focused investment fund Polychain Capital and saw participation from existing backers a16z crypto, Paradigm, SV Angel, and Variant.
Devs, NFTs, mobile, & more
“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!,” wrote the company in a blog post.
In the past few weeks, Uniswap Labs had shared plans to add several new offerings, one of which was NFT trading on the platform and another was a web3 wallet for its customers.
Uniswap co-founder Hayden Adams said that the platform is inspired by the values of Ethereum: transparency, accessibility, and security. And the idea is to support the broader ecosystem as it grows.
As an example, Adams pointed to the launch of 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.”
Leading market share
Uniswap is the largest decentralized exchange (DEX), with a 64% share of DEX trading volumes, according to data from DefiLlama. The exchange’s native token, UNI, has a market cap of nearly $5 million and is holding strong despite the crypto winter.
This is one of the largest Series B funding rounds of the year as the market downturn has nibbled away investors’ interest among retail and institutional players. VC investments in the crypto space have declined about 37% YoY for the Sept quarter to $4.44 billion, according to PitchBook data.
