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Synthetix, a DeFi project for synthetic assets, announced that it raised $12 million from Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, and IOSG.
VCs Enter DeFi Governance
The three venture capital firms invested by purchasing SNX tokens worth $12 million from SynthetixDAO’s treasury.
The funds will be used as collateral to provide liquidity as well as to participate in the Synthetix platform’s governance.
It's a pleasure to join #Synthetix family🎊🎊🎊 https://t.co/QX2R8P1oQV
— IOSG Ventures (@IOSGVC) February 14, 2021
The latest funding indicates growth efforts by onboarding valuable liquidity partners in the Synthetix ecosystem.
Previously, Synthetix founder Kain Warwick reported that synthetixDAO surpassed $1 billion in treasury holdings and now earns more monthly fees (~750k USD) than it spends.
This means that the project is cash-flow positive on protocol fees alone and there is no shortage of funds.
SNX token sales as a form of funding are not a recent phenomenon. Framework Ventures purchased 5 million Synth (SNX) tokens in 2019 from the project’s treasury to participate in the protocol.
Role of Vcs in Defi
As of late, bringing venture capitalists on board has become a sort of debate topic among the decentralized finance (DeFi) space.
The argument is that giving preferential treatment to VC firms in token sales may go against the ethos of community-driven DeFi.
Others say VCs can play a huge role in helping projects in the DeFi space expand using their vast resources.
According to Hayden Adams, founder of the popular DEX Uniswap, VCs could be a boon for DeFi projects if they add value instead of just being passive investors.
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They're happy to be exactly as involved as we want them to be and no more.
They're super smart, talented, and extremely busy people.
They *always* make time for us when we ask but if we're heads down working hard they have no issues with giving us space.
— Hayden Adams 🦄 (@haydenzadams) February 12, 2021
Jordan Momtazi, a lead contributor to synthetixDAO, confirmed this notion by stating the new VC firms help recruit talent and lead the expansion of Synthetix protocol into new regions.
The onboarding of new partners also comes at a time when Synthetix is preparing to launch the long-awaited V3 update which will allow layer-2 scaling.
In the meantime, new synthetic assets continue to be launched for trading on the platform, with sTSLA (synthetic Tesla stock) being the latest to be ratified by the Spartan Council.
Disclosure: The author did not hold crypto mentioned in this article at the time of press.