Solana DeFi Protocol Exotic Markets Raises $5M Ahead of Mainnet Launch

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Exotic Markets raised $5 million in a private token sale co-led by Multicoin and Ascensive Assets.

• Exotic Markets offers a range of structured products (pre-packaged investments) on a Solana-based platform governed by the EXO token.
• The new capital will go towards strengthening the team and marketing efforts, Exotic Markets co-founder Joffrey Dalet told CoinDesk.
• Part of the funds will be allocated to market-making activities on the platform to help drive its mainnet launch, which is planned for late February, said Dalet. (A devnet is slated for later this month.) Market makers buy and sell assets for their own account, which also helps provide the market with liquidity.
• The funding comes as Solana remains in the top five of the DeFi TVL charts, or the total dollar value of crypto assets committed to a blockchain’s DeFi protocols.
• Other participants in the Exotic Markets token sale included Alameda Research, Animoca Brands, Morningstar Ventures, Solana Capital and others.
• The Exotic Markets team includes Dalet, who spent nine years trading volatility products and served as a quant volatility hedge fund manager, and Benjamin Rameau, who has a background in equity sales and blockchain technology.
• “Structured products will open up opportunities for investors to generate yield denominated in stablecoin rather than governance tokens,” Ascensive Assets Managing Partner Oliver Blakely said in a press release. “We view this as a very healthy evolution of the DeFi space.”

Read more: Three Arrows Backs Money-Streaming Mean DAO to Boost DeFi Payments on Solana

UPDATE (Jan. 5, 15:12 UTC): Clarifies date of planned mainnet launch.