Stader Labs, a cryptocurrency staking management platform, has raised $12.5 million (Rs 93 crore) in a funding round led by Three Arrows Capital, pushing its valuation to $450 million.
The round also saw participation from Blockchain.com, Accomplice, DACM, GoldenTree Asset Management, Accel, Amber, 4RC, Figment and angel investors such as Prabhakar Reddy, Cofounder of FalconX and Matt Cantieri, GM at Anchor Protocol.
The staking infrastructure platform will expand to other L1s to bring convenient, safe staking solutions to retail and institutional funds, the company said.
“This capital will be strategically deployed to accelerate our cross-chain expansion, as well as to nurture our growing ecosystem of third-parties developing staking applications with decentralised Stader infrastructure,” said Amitej Gajjala, CEO at Stader Labs.
Stader had last raised $4 million in October 2021 at a valuation of $50 million, led by Pantera Capital along with Coinbase Ventures, True Ventures, Jump Capital, Proof Group, Hypersphere, Huobi Ventures, Solidity Ventures, Ledgerprime, and Double Peak Group.
Bengaluru-based Stader is a non-custodial, smart contract-based staking platform that helps retail and institutions conveniently discover and access staking solutions.
Staking is a way of earning rewards for holding certain cryptocurrencies, similar to depositing money in a bank, in that an investor locks up their assets and in exchange earns rewards or interest.
Founded in April 2021 by Sidhartha Doddipalli, Dheeraj Borra and Amitej Gajjala, Stader Labs focuses on cryptocurrency staking management by building decentralised financial protocols and applications for efficient stake management on public blockchain networks.
In addition to its own platform, Stader’s modular smart contracts and staking middleware infrastructure for Proof-of-Stake (PoS) networks can be leveraged for retail crypto users, exchanges, custodians, and mainstream fintech players.
“Since launching in November 2021, there are over 15,000 unique wallets staking over 5.9 million LUNA with a total value locked of around $500 million. These numbers underscore both Stader’s early traction and the broader market opportunity in staking infrastructure,” said Kyle Davies of Three Arrows Capital.
The company’s product is currently in use on Terra’s blockchain ecosystem. Additionally, it plans to build native smart contracts for staking on multiple blockchains, including Solana, Ethereum, Fantom, Hedera and Polygon. It is aiming to cover five to six blockchains over the next year.
"The objective is to build an economic ecosystem to grow and develop custom solutions such as yield redirection with rewards, liquid staking, launchpads, gaming, and more," the company said.
“These tools will bring Stader closer to its vision to be the most convenient and safe non-custodial staking platform — and a core ally in the future of finance thanks to its embedded decentralization for L1s...We’re excited to continually support Stader as a leading Terra ecosystem project and lynchpin of the next evolution of staking infrastructure,” said Do Kwon of Terra.
Cryptocurrency adoption has also been growing in India, despite regulatory uncertainties. According to an October report from blockchain research firm Chainalysis, the country ranks amongst the top three in the world in terms of crypto adoption.