1inch closes $175m in funding from institutional investors

DeFi platform 1inch has successfully closed $175m in Series B funding in a bid to bolster regulatory efforts, onboard institutions and build new protocols.

The funding round was led by Amber Group and included investments from a selection of prominent crypto investors including Jane Street, Alameda Research, VanEck, Gemini and Celsius.

The funding will be used by 1inch to help the decentralised exchange (DEX) navigate the unpredictable DeFi regulatory space in Europe and the US to assist in onboarding institutions into 1inch Pro – a compliance product for institutional customers.

It will also be spent on building an array of new protocols, expanding the utility of its native token – 1INCH – and doubling the size of its contributor team “over the next few years”.

Further decentralisation of the 1inch DAO is expected thanks to the addition of several dozen “new participants” to the 1inch Network.

According to 1inch, the initial investment target was set at $70m, but following a series of developments in the space and a “huge demand from valuable backers”, the decision was made to up the allocation to $175m.

“While continuing to keep the existing DeFi audience happy by delivering state-of-the-art products, 1inch also aims to become a gateway for institutions that want to be part of the DeFi space,” said Sergej Kunz, co-founder of the 1inch Network.

“The next $1tn of assets entering DeFi will come from institutions rather than retail users, and 1inch would like to facilitate entry for them.

“We have already started work in that direction by attracting some key players from the traditional finance markets, and this collaboration will only accelerate over the next few years.”