Uniswap needs more than $100 million to expand its existing range of services

Uniswap Labs is reportedly seeking at least $100 million in funding for a potential $1 billion valuation. According to four knowledgeable sources, the creator of the Uniswap protocol is looking to expand its suite of services with the expected fresh capital.

While the development is still subject to change, inside sources also say that at least two investors are attached to fund Uniswap. These are U.S. investment firm Polychain Capital and one of Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds.

Update on Uniswap financing

According to reports, Uniswap’s potential capital raise is aimed at generating between $100 million and $200 million in equity. In addition, the company’s potential $1 billion funding round represents an ambitious plan to expand its offerings to customers. Among those projected offerings is the ability for customers to trade non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Uniswap from a number of marketplaces. In addition, the leading decentralized exchange is also looking to integrate a wallet into its existing suite of services. Speaking previously about Uniswap’s program to onboard “several new products“, the company’s director of operations, Mary-Catherine Lader, explained:

“Our mission is to unlock universal ownership and exchange. If you can build in the ability to exchange value and allow people to join the community and exchange value with your project, business or organization, that’s a powerful way to allow more people to engage with that ownership.”

At the time, Lader also spoke about the broader underlying pattern of Web3 and the potential it offers to players in this space. As Uniswap’s COO put it:

“Web3 is revolutionizing financial technology and financial infrastructure into one entity. Web3 allows any application, any website, to invent value in a digital economy without having to ask permission or pay for that service.”

Currently, Uniswap accounts for an overwhelming 64% of all decentralized exchange volumes (DEX), according to DeFi Llama. In other words, it accounts for about two-thirds of all DEX market volume. In addition, UNI, the crypto-currency exchange’s protocol token, has a market capitalization of about $5 billion despite the market’s downturn. At the peak of the bull run in 2021, Uni’s market capitalization reached an impressive $22.5 billion.

Uniswap

Uniswap’s most recent Series A funding round was in August 2020. The platform is the largest decentralized exchange in the crypto space and counts Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Paradigm among its current backers. In addition, the platform also serves as an open-source permissionless protocol that developers can use and integrate into their platforms. This is so that crypto-currency users can exchange tokens.

The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) Uniswap also holds the largest cash of its kind in the crypto space. According to DeepDAO, that figure is about $2.7 billion in value. Last month, Uniswap said it would create the Uniswap Foundation. This entity will be primarily responsible for growing the decentralized exchange ecosystem.

In September, Uniswap’s first round of grants totaled $1.8 million.