With an array of potential and robust clientele, including projects such as Compound and Aave, Gauntlet has created a steady niche in the DeFi sector. Gauntlet has been marking its presence in the crypto community for its financial modeling platform focused on crypto. The company has obtained the status of a unicorn on raising USD 23.8 million in the funding of Series B from several top venture funds of blockchain.
According to Bloomberg, Ribbit Capital, the venture firm based in Palo-Alto, led the investment round where the existing investors Polychain Capital and Paradigm participated.
Gauntlet stated that they would use all the funding for hiring additional workers and expanding into the new industry highs, including gaming. The executive of Wall Street, Tarun Chitra, who used to work for a multinational hedge fund named D. E. Shaw, founded Gauntlet in 2018. Focusing on capital efficiency alongside risk factors, Gauntlet offers simulation tools and financial modeling for the industry of cryptocurrency.
Gauntlet received the first-ever seed investment of USD 2.9 million in 2018 from Coinbase Ventures, along with five different contributors. Two years later, an additional USD 4.4 million was raised by Gauntlet through cryptocurrency-related investments.
The one billion valuations of Gauntlet speaks on behalf of the significant growth of the cryptocurrency industry within the last two years. As explained by Bloomberg, the main product of Gauntlet lets cryptocurrency projects, especially the DeFi or decentralized finance platforms run regular stress tests, which help set optimal lending as well as collateral levels.
AAVE (Aave) and COMP (Compound) are the two most important clients of Gauntlet, and these two are among the most significant decentralized finance projects based on total locked value and market capitalization. Since earlier last year, considerable venture capital has been attracted by the blockchain and crypto industries companies. It has made several companies be crowned as ‘unicorns’. In a startup community, the unicorn is referred to as the company that receives a minimum of one billion valuations. In the last twelve months, the number of companies achieving the status of ‘unicorn’ was more than a dozen.
According to Cointelegraph, USD 25.2 billion was generated by blockchain startups from venture funding last year, including fifty-nine “mega rounds” worth over USD 100 million each. Although the last year faced a volatile period in terms of cryptocurrency markets, the venture capital was not very concerned with the minimal price fluctuations.
