The decentralized finance protocol has secured a seeding round for the development of "the next evolution in DeFi derivatives by bringing exotic derivative capabilities to crypto."
According to an official press release by Cega, the DeFi protocol had raised $4.3 million in a seed round which was led by one of the largest crypto asset investment firms Dragonfly Capital.
The funding was supported by several other VC firms including Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, Pantera Capital, and Solana Ventures. This puts the total valuation of the DeFi protocol at $60M.
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With the investment, Cega Finance, powered by Solana, seeks to become the first DeFi protocol that focuses on exotic derivatives, which has been a barely touched market by other decentralized finance platforms, despite it being relatively successful.
General Partner at Dragonfly Capital Partners Tom Schmidt spoke on the investment into Cega, stating:
"DeFi goes through a process where one team creates an innovative breakthrough financial primitive, which in turns spurs the creation of a whole new category of products and grows the overall market. We’ve seen this with Uniswap for AMMs and Compound for money markets, and I think the Cega team is going to do this for exotic derivatives and structured products, a badly needed gap in the DeFi industry."
Cega will offer its investors "exotic structured product benefits like superior yield, built-in downside protection, and compounded returns." Also, market makers will receive discounts on hedges, alongside "proprietary gains through hedging trades."
With a team consisting of experienced developers, traders, and founders of the startup accelerator company Y Combinator, Cega will commit its resources to creating smart contracts for exotic derivatives and consumer-facing staking products.
Former derivatives trader and CEO of Cega Arisa Toyosaki spoke on the DeFi derivatives market, claiming that it "experienced >300% CAGR in the last 2 years and has 4M users today." She believes that her high-yield-bearing products will prove to be successful "during the volatile period of crypto expansion."
