DeFi Firm BloXroute Raises $70M to Fund Expansion in SoftBank-Led Round

BloXroute, a company that facilitates faster decentralized finance (DeFi) transactions, completed a $70 million Series B funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 to further its expansion plans.

• The investment will enable the company to add to its team and extend its reach, bloXroute co-founder and CEO Uri Klarman said in a statement on Tuesday.
• The Chicago-based company describes itself as the first provider of a blockchain distribution network, or BDN, for DeFi traders on Ethereum, Polygon and the Binance Smart Chain.
• A BDN is a global network of servers that helps speed the way transactions and blocks distribute for multiple blockchain systems, enabling users to make more strategic and profitable decisions, Klarman told CoinDesk in a statement.
• “We foresee exciting use cases to emerge in industries such as [non-fungible tokens], blockchain-based metaverses and gaming,” said Aaron Wong, investor at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “We are thrilled to partner with Uri and the team to help build a blockchain superhighway with uncongested performance.”
• Robert Kaplan, an investment director at SoftBank Investment Advisers, will join the bloXroute board.
• Tokyo-based investment management firm SoftBank has been pouring money into crypto companies. In the first quarter of 2022 alone it invested in Consensys, Aleo, Polygon, Blockdaemon and FTX.
• Financial service provider Lightspeed, crypto investment firms Dragonfly and ParaFi Capital and digital asset trading firm GSR were among other investors that participated.

Read more: This Token Could Bridge the Incentive Gap Between Ethereum Miners and Ethereum Users