coindesk.com
Leap, a startup building a non-custodial crypto wallet for the Terra blockchain, said Tuesday it raised $3.2 million. According to a press release, the funding was backed by CoinFund and Pantera Capital, with contributions from Arrington Capital, Accel and Terraform Labs.
If estimates in Leap’s litepaper hold true, the funding round values the project at $40 million. Founder Sanjeev Rao declined to comment on the valuation.
A Chrome extension with over 4,000 downloads, according to Rao, the MetaMask-like crypto wallet supports asset transfers, non-fungible token (NFT) trades and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications across the Terra ecosystem, which runs on LUNA and the stablecoin UST. Rao said iOS and Android mobile apps are on the way.
Terra is in “hyper growth phase,” as Rao put it, with UST’s market cap soaring ten-fold as the chain’s total value locked (TVL) tops $30 billion, second only to Ethereum, according to DeFi Llama.
Rao said that Terra is bringing “a lot of new users into the space,” therefore, Leap wallet allows for individuals new to crypto to interact with the blockchain through its integration of dapps and NFTs in one “super wallet.”
Terra wallets
Leap’s biggest competitor is Terra Station, Terraform Labs’ own non-custodial wallet. When asked about Terra Station, Rao said that “a good wallet experience makes or breaks when it comes to onboarding new users,” and Leap keeps up with the space’s rapid growth and changing needs, such as security, design, and usability through its dapp integrations.
According to Rao, in the coming months, Leap will release a native governance token for a token-reward program for active wallets. Leap will also allow users to purchase NFT collections on the app.
Only the wallet users have access to their private keys in Leap’s non-custodial setup. This carries be-your-own-bank benefits while establishing personal responsibility, and thus increasing risk. People can still fall victim to copycat websites, Rao said.
Rao said Leap mitigates some of the scam risks by integrating directly with popular Terra-based DeFi protocols, allowing users to stake LUNA and UST without leaving the wallet.
“Being able to deposit in-wallet to Anchor [is] something we built quite early on, something people use a lot. Similarly, we've integrated multiple products from Stader labs, where now users have access to multiple staking options in-wallet.”
Leap had earmarked 8% of its LEAP governance tokens for this private sale. It plans to bolster its engineering, design, product and marketing teams with the fresh capital, Rao said.
CoinFund and Pantera did not respond to CoinDesk by press time.