Quick take:
- The company plans to use the capital to scale its crypto yield products.
- The DeFi protocol has a total value locked of just over $5 million according to founder Rhett Shipp.
- Superlayer, Avalaunch, GoGoPool, Daybreak Digital and Linda Kreitzman participated in the round.
Avant, a decentralized finance protocol based on Avalanche, raised $6.5 million in a funding round supported by Superlayer, Avalaunch, GoGoPool, Daybreak Digital and Linda Kreitzman.
The company offers the “stable value” token avUSD, which can be staked to receive a yield-generating version of the savUSD token.
Users can create avUSD by staking USDC or USDT stablecoins. The product is still in early access, allowing only a select group of whitelisted addresses to stake.
Avant plans to use the new capital to increase its crypto yield by generating neutral tokens without relying on centralized exchanges.
Avant has been compared to Ethereum-based Ethena, which offers the $ENA token. However, founder Rhett Shipp explained to The Block the main difference between the two.
“Ethena’s USDe generates yield via the “carry trade”. The carry trade generates a very high return in some market conditions and less in others,” he said. “Avant also engages in the carry trade, but engages in other market neutral transactions when the carry trade is less profitable. So far, this has resulted in returns significantly higher than those produced by Ethena. Additionally, even when the carry trade is profitable, we believe we can execute it more productively than our peers.
According to Shipp, the product currently has a total locked value of just over $5 million and has fewer than 10 depositors as part of its early access strategy allowing staking for a few select addresses. “This whitelist will expand over the coming weeks,” adding that avUSD and savUSD will be open to the public in December, which he believes will pave the way for TVL to grow.
Avant makes money by charging at least 10% fees on the yield generated by staked tokens and plans to launch its native AVANT token in the first quarter of 2025.
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