Fintech provider Portal has raised $34 million in seed funding to develop its Bitcoin-based decentralized exchange (DEX) which will aid cross-chain swaps between multiple networks.
In a Jan 30 announcement, the company disclosed an exit from stealth mode and an inflow of $34 million to build a layer-2 Atomic swap technology leveraging on security and user experience.
The funding round drew participants from cryptocurrency firms like Coinbase Ventures, Arrington Capital, Gate.io, OKX Ventures, and more. The company plans to develop a model for peer-to-peer (P2P) Atomic swapping of Bitcoin (BTC) without the regular intermediaries like bridges, centralized exchanges (CEX), wrappers, etc that can be susceptible to hacks.
Per the statement, the technology would enable users to swap Bitcoin across multiple networks after transaction times without compromising privacy and security.
Portal will roll out its DEX and wallet as two flagship products on the back of the funding. While the DEX allows more efficient BTC swaps, the wallet is a non-custodial tool to receive and send cryptocurrencies across blockchains.
As part of its innovation roadmap, the company will launch products to users that have been only available to hedge funds and big-scale investors. Some products to be released include AI powers, API integration tools as well as other partnerships with Bitcoin firms.
The company disclosed that the security of investor assets has become an important theme in recent months following huge industry hacks that have seen over $2.5 billion drained from bridges in the past two years.
Last year saw the HECO/HTX and the Orbit Bridge attack leading to millions in losses and wider scrutiny from authorities and users on the safety of assets within the cryptocurrency space.
Chandra Duggirala, the co-founder and CEO of Portal stated that bridges and custodial solutions have been plagued with risks from the onset but Portal seeks to solve the problem through a fast and secure technology.
Michael Arrington, the CEO of Arrington Capital noted that the company is setting the pace on what decentralized finance (DeFi) is on Bitcoin.
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