- Ledger Digital’s investment follows seed funding Infinity raised in September, which is backed by top VCs in the space.
- Infinity is an Ethereum-based protocol designed to advance institutional DeFi or what is called “hybrid finance”.
- Price discovery and risk innovation are critical to institutional adoption of DeFi.
Ledger Digital, the crypto subsidiary of Japanese banking giant Nomura, has announced a strategic investment in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Infinity.
Infinity is an institutional-focused lending and borrowing platform founded by Kevin Lepso, former head of structures at Morgan Stanley.
While the companies did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, Ledger Digital’s investment follows Infinity’s $4.2 million seed round in September 2022. Prominent crypto market makers and venture capital investors backed the round, including Susquehanna International Group, Block0, GSR, OWC, Flow. Traders, and SeaSquared.
Infinite Looks to Accelerate “Institutional DeFi”
according to the description a Press releaseInfinity will use the investment to accelerate the development of critical infrastructure aimed at “institutional DeFi”. It is also known as hybrid finance.
Get the benefit of hybrid finance blockchain technology in the space with an interoperable protocol for benchmark rates, credit and counterparty management.
Olivier Dang, head of ventures at Ledger Digital, said the protocol is paving the way for institutional flows to come on-chain.
,Infinity is building critical infrastructure for DeFi, and its protocol enables value discovery and risk management within DeFi that is transformative for institutionsDang said. According to him, Infinity’s groundwork is critical to benchmark rates and risk management or to new levels of innovation in institutional-grade lending.
With a $300 trillion market of debt, derivatives and equity credit securities available, the upcoming launch of Ethereum-powered Infinity is bound to enable a wider participation of institutional players in DeFi.
Kevin Lepso, founder of Infinity, commented:
,Ledger Digital Ventures is an active investor in hybrid finance and an excellent partner as we seek to advance the Rates protocol that meets the needs of the global investor community.,
Lepso calls investment significant given expected increase in institutional flows into DeFi by 2025, especially boosted by new BIS guidelines, He added that hybrid finance is also set to be big as crypto centralized finance (CeFi) is on the decline.
According to the protocol, part of the “wave of tokenization” and adoption will be due to blockchain efficiency, on-chain security and TradeFi – DeFi fungibility.