Injective Raises $40m Funding to Expand DeFi Applications

Injective, a popular New York-based blockchain platform built for finance, announced on Wednesday that it had raised $40 million in a funding round led by Jump Crypto, the cryptocurrency arm of the decades-old trading firm Jump Trading Group.

Injective is designed to build decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, such as derivatives exchanges, prediction markets, and options. It also produces decentralized financial applications (dApps) to power a new ecosystem of connected DeFi applications.

BH Digital, the crypto and digital asset division of global alternative investment management platform Brevan Howard, also participated in the funding round.

Eric Chen, co-founder and CEO of Injective Labs, talked about the funding raise: "We are excited to collaborate with our partners, including Jump Crypto, which we expect will be a major boon for the broader Injective ecosystem."

Injective said it raised funds to add new stakeholders to its ecosystem. Chen said: "With Jump as a major force in the crypto ecosystem, the partnership will be focused on expanding Injective's network and further providing shared liquidity across the Injective ecosystem. It's really about bringing on valuable stakeholders rather than having more capital at hand."

The blockchain platform stated that it would use the fresh capital to support incoming Injective developers and develop critical toolkits, support software and core upgrades to expand its ecosystem. The platform further said it would use the funding to increase utility for its native token, INJ, and provide liquidity and support to decentralized applications (dApps) on its blockchain.

Injective also mentioned that it would use the new funding to support a wider effort to bring in more institutions and offer greater liquidity to DeFi. Chen elaborated: "The Injective ecosystem is institution-ready and excited for sophisticated liquidity coming in. It's a synergetic effort for broader adoption."

Although digital asset markets have been unstable, the blockchain sector continues to scale as demand rises from both crypto-native and traditional institutions seeking to use the technology.

Chen said in recent months, there has been more interest in DeFi services from traditional institutions and people in the traditional finance landscape. The executive said: "This is definitely shown with financial service providers like investment banks, brokerage firms and asset managers regardless of market conditions. There's no sign of them slowing down."