Pantera Capital and Alameda Research Invest in Balancer to Accelerate Growth of Programmable Liquidity
Balancer Labs is excited to announce that Pantera Capital and Alameda Research have made an investment in Balancer, through the direct purchase of BAL tokens from the Balancer Labs treasury.
This new funding will help grow the Balancer Labs team as development of Balancer V2 ramps up. The second evolution of the Balancer protocol will overhaul the current system architecture to introduce significant improvements to transaction costs, ease of developer integration, and user experience.
The Balancer Labs team eagerly looks forward to sharing our hard work with the community.
Fernando Martinelli, CEO of Balancer Labs:
“Balancer Labs is thrilled to partner with two of the top investment funds in crypto as we move into our next phase of growth, aligned in our vision for building programmable liquidity to power the new financial system. With their hands-on experience in DeFi, both Pantera Capital and Alameda Research are uniquely positioned to help fuel Balancer’s expansion as investors and users of the protocol.”
Joey Krug, Co-CIO of Pantera Capital:
“The most exciting aspect of DeFi is the creation of financial primitives that previously weren’t possible and Balancer is a prime example. The magic of Balancer is that its smart pools provide value to all parts of the liquidity ecosystem — as a self-balancing portfolio for asset owners, a deep liquidity source for traders, and a bootstrapping tool for issuers. As an active Balancer user, we’re excited to partner with the Balancer team towards building the most flexible and deepest liquidity protocol for tomorrow’s financial system.”
Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of Alameda Research:
“There’s a huge gap between DeFi projects that just market and DeFi projects that innovate. Balancer is one of those few projects that move the space forward: creating trading and liquidity opportunities that no other project is offering, and looking to expand the reach of decentralized finance. The future of the space depends on its ability to scale and to grow; much has been written about scaling but surprisingly little about product growth, which in the end is just as important.”
About Pantera Capital
Pantera Capital is the first institutional investment firm focused exclusively on bitcoin, other digital currencies, and companies in the blockchain tech ecosystem. Pantera launched the first cryptocurrency fund in the United States when bitcoin was at $65/BTC in 2013. The firm subsequently launched the first exclusively-blockchain venture fund and recently concluded raising its third venture fund. In 2017 Pantera was the first firm to offer a pre-auction ICO fund. Pantera Bitcoin Fund has returned over 21,000% in seven years and has returned billions to its investors. Pantera currently manages $700mm in capital in seven funds in three product groups — passive, hedge, and venture.
About Alameda Research
Alameda Research is a quantitative liquidity provider in crypto. One of the leading market makers in the space accounting for a significant fraction of all project and exchange liquidity, Alameda has recently been increasing its VC activities as well, helping to support the crypto ecosystem’s growth. Alameda is also dedicated to leaving the world a better place, having donated over $20m to a wide array of charities and causes.
