Binance Labs Co-Leads MilkyWay in $5M Seed Funding Round

MilkyWay secures millions of dollars from a seed funding round co-led by Binance Labs and Polychain Capital.

by Brian Danga. Fact checked by: Ciaran Lawler, Editor: Stefan Trapp

Published: April 30, 2024 │ 12:37 PM GMT

Space man taking a selfie with his collegue celebrating in the milky way. — *Created by Kornelija Poderskytė from DailyCoin*

MilkyWay has concluded its latest seed funding round.
The funding round drew participation from notable investors, including Binance Labs.
MilkyWay will use the funding for several expansion goals.

Liquid staking protocol MilkyWay has raised millions of dollars after concluding a seed funding round co-led by Binance Labs and Polychain Capital.

Launched in December 2023, MilkyWay is the first liquid staking protocol for Celestia’s modular ecosystem, serving over 150,000 users. The protocol’s LST and milkTIA are integrated with over ten decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

MilkyWay Bags $5M Seed Funding

In an announcement dated April 30, MilkyWay said it had raised $5 million in the seed funding round to propel its mission forward and further the development of the modular ecosystem.

Sponsored

“The new capital will be pivotal for our innovation and community value creation efforts like our upcoming collaboration with Initia to bolster modular security, where milkTIA will be used to secure both the L1 and the rollups built on top of it,” MilkyWay stated.

Besides utilizing the funding to cover operational expenses, MilkyWay is also keen to expand its team and launch its governance and utility token, MILK, later this year.

Binance Co-Founder Yi He confirmed Binance Labs’ involvement in the funding round, noting that the firm supported Celestia’s ecosystem enrichment.

“We are supportive of Labs' portfolio Celestia's ecosystem enrichment and this Binance Labs investment supports an innovative project propelling use cases within the Celestia ecosystem. We look forward to MilkyWay’s growth and development within the modularity data availability space,” Ye stated.

Other participants in the funding round included HackVC, Longhash Ventures, and Crypto.com Capital. Per the statement, the round also received backing from Celestia Co-founder and CEO Mustafa Al-Bassam and George Lambeth, Celestia’s inaugural investor.