Quick Take:
- Kelp DAO secured $9 million through a private token sale.
- The funding round, which concluded in March with a $90 million FDV, was confirmed by co-founder Amitej Gajjala to The Block.
Kelp DAO, an Ethereum liquid restaking platform leveraging EigenLayer, has successfully secured $9 million in a private token sale round.
Leading the round were SCB Limited, a Bahamas-based proprietary trading firm, and Laser Digital, the crypto unit of Nomura Global, with a combined $3.5 million investment. Other notable investors included Bankless Ventures, Hypersphere Ventures, Draper Dragon, DACM, Cypher Capital, GSR, HTX Ventures, and DWF Ventures. Prominent angel investors such as Scott Moore of Gitcoin, Sam Kazemian of Frax Finance, Marc Zeller of Aave Chan Initiative, Saurabh Sharma of Jump Crypto, and Amrit Kumar of AltLayer also participated.
Kelp initiated the private token round in February and closed it in March, co-founder Amitej Gajjala told The Block. At the time, the token’s fully diluted valuation (FDV) was set at $90 million, with Kelp’s total value locked (TVL) around $300 million. Since then, Kelp’s TVL has surged to approximately $961 million, indicating a potential increase in FDV if a new round were to be raised, although no such plans are currently in place.
KELP Token Launch Timeline
Kelp privately sold its forthcoming KELP token in this round, with plans to launch the governance token “soon,” pending legal and exchange due diligence. Gajjala clarified that the KELP token is distinct from Kelp’s KEP, a token representation of EigenLayer points. KEP claims have been paused due to EigenLayer’s non-fungible snapshot logic, but those who already claimed KEP will receive EigenLayer tokens.
Expansion Plans for Bitcoin, Solana, and More
With new funding, Kelp aims to extend its liquid restaking services to other blockchains, including Bitcoin, Solana, and BNB Chain, targeting the launch of “1-2 of these chains” in the third quarter. “We plan to enable native restaking on Kelp from Bitcoin Layer 2 networks,” Gajjala stated. Additionally, the team is exploring staking infrastructure on other chains and innovative solutions like restaking synthetic Bitcoin and synthetic ETH.
Gajjala and co-founder Dheeraj Borra also operate Stader Labs, a liquid staking platform currently boasting a TVL of over $680 million, with Polygon (MATIC) liquid staking contributing $504 million, according to DeFiLlama data.