Uniswap Labs Seeks $100 Million In Equity Round, Here’s Why

Per a report from TechCrunch, Uniswap Labs is looking to raise $100 million to $200 million in a new equity round at a $1 billion valuation. The company behind the popular Ethereum-based decentralized exchange (DEX) is allegedly still planning the round and the terms of the deal.

In that sense, the final result of these deliberations and the final details of the deals might change, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The company behind Uniswap has been looking to expand its offerings and products, TechCrunch claims.

This new funding round will be the first step in that direction if successfully completed. Uniswap Labs has approached several investors that could show interest in the round, including Polychain and others.

The company has already received financial support from Paradigm Venture Capital, Union Square Ventures, ParaFi, a16z, and others. Therefore, there might be interest in supporting a new round.

Uniswap Embraces Web3, New Round Will Boost Its Dominance?

Uniswap was one of the Ethereum exchanges that foster the 2020 “DeFi Summer”, a surge in decentralized finance (DeFi) adoption. At that time, the protocols that allowed users to trade, borrow funds, swap tokens, and more saw their total value spike from under $1 billion to $10 billion and $100 billion at its 2021 all-time high.

This has allowed Uniswap to onboard more people on its platform and launch a successful third iteration. Now, the company behind the DEX wants to offer users a new wallet, and a non-fungible token (NFT) platform to exchange these digital assets, according to the report.

The adoption of NFTs and DeFi protocols has prompted a new narrative in the crypto sector, called “Web3”, the evolution of the internet as we know it with blockchain capabilities. Uniswap Labs has embraced the narrative and seems to be aiming to maintain its dominance over the sector.

Data provided by DeFi Pulse indicates that Uniswap is the 4^th Ethereum DeFi protocol in terms of total value locked (TVL). The protocol holds around $3.8 billion in this ranking with a 12% month-over-month user growth as of August 2022 and a 40% user retention.

As seen in the chart below, DeFi Pulse shows that the TVL of the DeFi sector stands at $27.6 billion. This shows that Uniswap and the top four protocols hold the majority of TVL in the Ethereum-based decentralized finances.

Mary Catherine Lader told TechCrunch the following about their objectives, their ambition to become a “universal protocol” and their goal to provide users with exchange value and take ownership over their assets:

Our mission is to unlock universal ownership and exchange. If you can embed the ability to swap value and have people join the community and exchange value with your project, or your company or organization — that’s a powerful way to allow more people to engage in this ownership.

Uniswap Price Moves Against The Trend In The Crypto Market

The price of Uniswap has been trending to the upside even as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other larger cryptocurrencies weakened. The cryptocurrency might be reacting to any potential deal for its $100 million round, and to the expectation of that announcement.

At the time of writing, UNI’s price trades at $6.5 with a 4% profit over the past 24 hours and a 14% profit over the past week. The cryptocurrency has been on the move as news about a new funding round broke across multiple news outlets.