DeFi Startup Arch Secures $5m from Seed Round, to Achieve 'BlackRock of Web3'

Arch Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) startup, has acquired $5 million in funding from a seed round to make an effort to accomplish its goal of becoming the "BlackRock of web3."

As reported by The Block, this new seed round funding will be used to tokenize an extensive range of decentralized finance indices and to build the platform into a decentralized asset management protocol.

According to the company release, the fundraising is co-led by Digital Currency Group and SoftBank spinoff Upload Ventures. Other investors include the venture arm of Latin America blockchain firm Ripio, TechStars, and GBV.

Andres Fleischer, a managing partner of Ripio Ventures, stated that Arch Finance provided solution is compelling since it's bringing in something complex but making it easy for everyone to do it.

Arch is a portfolio management startup that aims to make investments in DeFi accessible to the public.

Christopher Storaker, co-founder and CEO of Arch, in an interview with The Block, stated, “diversification is the only free lunch in finance,” and he wants to make it simple for the web3 ecosystem.

Storaker said his decentralized asset management protocol, Arch finance, creates well-diversified tokenized investment portfolios that individuals will be able to buy using smart contracts and self-custody.

When asked why investors should choose Arch over buying a crypto exchange-traded product (ETP) from a player like BlackRock or 21Shares, Storaker replied, “Arch will take a different approach by going beyond just Bitcoin and Ethereum to provide investors exposure to the cutting-edge of what’s happening in web3.”

“When we say ‘BlackRock of web3,’ we really want to be on par on the methodology side with what they do and what people expect from passive products,” said Storaker.

Notably, Arch Finance has previously raised a pre-seed round and went through the TechStars accelerator program.

The portfolio management platform will offer two index tokens, including the Arch blockchain token. These index tokens would be used to track the largest blockchains, and the Arch Ethereum Web3 token will track native tokens of notable protocols like Uniswap and Chainlink.

Speaking of seed rounds, in June, Astaria, an NFT lending platform unlocking instant liquidity, raised a total of $8 million in a seed round from significant venture capital and angel investors to Improve NFT Lending Liquidity.

With this series of funding, even amid the bear market, the saying “bear markets are for building'' seems to have been justified.