DeFi-Focused Derivatives Platform Hedget Raises $500K in Seed Funding

Decentralized derivatives protocol Hedget has raised $500,000 in seed funding.

• According to a press release issued Monday, the round was led by FBG Capital and NGC Ventures, both Asia-based venture firms.
• Hedget is a new Ethereum layer 2 solution for decentralized options trading, allowing users to buy and sell derivatives using collateral to hedge risk when holding crypto.
• Users can also hedge on positions of debt taken up on lending protocols in the DeFi space.
• The company believes options are a "necessary building block" for the maturation of DeFi, according to a blog post.
• Talking of why his firm co-led the round, NGC Managing Partner Roger Lim said Hedget would help solve the "pain points" of costly and slow settlements for decentralized options trading.
• The derivatives startup was incubated by Chromia, a scalable blockchain platform designed to support decentralized applications, or dapps.
• Chromia also invested in the seed round, its co-founder, Or Perelman, told CoinDesk.
• With fees on Ethereum now proving "prohibitively" expensive, Perelman said Hedget is further utilizing Chromia as a layer-two solution over Ethereum for complex trading transactions, with only settlements being recorded on Ethereum.
• He added Hedget's seed investment was significantly oversubscribed, but the team had decided to go for "an average number."

See also: Five Years In, DeFi Now Defines Ethereum