Alameda Research buys $20 million in REEF tokens linked to Polkadot-based DeFi project

Polkadot-based DeFi project Reef Finance has raised $20 million in a token sale round.

The round was backed by a single investor — Alameda Research — a crypto market maker and sister company of crypto exchange FTX.

"Alameda is our first bigger investor," Reef Finance CEO Denko Mancheski told The Block. Reef has previously raised $3.9 million in a private token sale round backed by venture firms, including NGC Ventures and QCP Capital.

Powered by Polkadot, Reef is a cross-chain liquidity and yield farming aggregator, which connects crypto traders on a single platform and supports both centralized and decentralized exchanges.

With fresh capital at hand, Reef that recently expanded its team looks to develop its protocol further for the mainnet release, Mancheski told The Block.

The project also plans to run bug bounty and developer grant programs, Mancheski said.

With Alameda Research on board, Reef would also implement cross-chain integrations with Serum on Solana. Serum is a decentralized exchange built on Solana that was initiated by a group including some Alameda team members.

Alameda plans to invest a further $60 million in Reef, a Reef representative told The Block. Mancheski said, "we are in discussions with Alameda for a subsequent investment."