- Laser Digital’s investment follows Infinity’s seed funding raised in September, backed by top VCs in the space.
- Infinity is an Ethereum-based protocol designed to facilitate institutional DeFi or so-called “hybrid finance”.
- Price discovery and risk innovation are essential to institutional adoption of DeFi.
Laser Digital, a crypto subsidiary of Japanese banking giant Nomura, has announced a strategic investment in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Infinity.
Infinity is an institutional lending and borrowing platform founded by Kevin Lepsoe, former head of structuring at Morgan Stanley.
The companies have not disclosed financial terms of the deal, but Laser Digital’s investment follows Infinity’s $4.2 million seed round in September 2022. Major cryptocurrency market makers and venture capital investors backing this round included Susquehanna International Group, Block0, GSR, OWC and Flow. Trader, and CSquared.
Infinity Looks to Accelerate ‘Institutional DeFi’
per detail press release, Infiniti will use the investment to accelerate the development of critical infrastructure targeted at “Institutional DeFi”. Also called hybrid finance.
Hybrid finance brings the benefits of blockchain technology to the sector with interoperable protocols for benchmarking rates, credit and counterparty management.
Olivier Dang, Head of Ventures at Laser Digital, said the protocol paves the way for institutional flows to be on-chain.
“Infinity is building the critical infrastructure for DeFi and its protocol, which enables price discovery and risk management within DeFi, is transformative for institutions‘” Dunn pointed out. According to him, Infinity’s foundation is key to benchmarking his rates and risk management or innovation to new levels in institutional lending.
With a $300 trillion credit securities market available across loans, derivatives and equities, Infiniti’s upcoming launch on Ethereum should enable broader institutional participation in DeFi. .
Infinity founder Kevin Lepsoe commented:
“Laser Digital Ventures is an active investor in hybrid finance and a premier partner looking to advance rate protocols that meet the needs of the global investor community.”
Lepsoe noted that the investments boosted by the new BIS are particularly important given the expected increase in institutional investor inflows into DeFi by 2025. guidelinesAs crypto-centred finance (CeFi) shrinks, so will hybrid finance, he added.
Part of the “tokenization wave” and adoption will hinge on blockchain efficiency, on-chain security, and TradFi – DeFi fungibility, according to the protocol.
