Ethena creator of USDe, closes latest funding round, achieving a valuation of 300 million Dollars

Crypto News– Following a clarification from Ethena Labs, several investors including Brevan Howard Digital, PayPal Ventures, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity via Avon Ventures, Binance, Deribit, Gemini, and Kraken have been removed from the list of participants in the strategic funding round.

Ethena creator of USDe, closes latest funding round, achieving a valuation of 300 million Dollars

Ethena Labs, the creator of the Ethereum-based stablecoin USDe, has successfully raised $14 million in its latest strategic funding round.

The round was co-led by Dragonfly and BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes’ family office, Maelstrom, as announced by Ethena Labs on Thursday.

Founder and CEO Guy Young revealed that despite having commitments exceeding $50 million, the company opted to cap the round at $14 million as it currently does not require additional cash. The fundraising initiative, which commenced in late December and concluded this week, was structured as a simple agreement for future equity with token warrants.

With this latest round, Ethena’s valuation has reached $300 million.

In addition to the funding news, Ethena also publicly launched its USDe stablecoin following a stealth launch in December. The stablecoin quickly amassed over $224 million in total value locked, and according to Hayes, who backed Ethena’s $6 million seed round last year through Maelstrom, USDe is poised to exceed $1 billion in TVL soon and emerge as a formidable competitor to Tether. Hayes serves as the founding advisor of Ethena.

The genesis of Ethena traces back to Hayes’ blog post titled “Dust on Crust” last year, where he articulated his vision for a crypto-native, derivative-backed stablecoin operating autonomously from the traditional banking system.