Decentralized exchange DexGuru raises $1 million in SAFT sale

DEX • April 20, 2021, 9:00AM EDT

UPDATED: April 20, 2021, 9:06AM EDT

Decentralized exchange startup DexGuru has raised $1 million in a seed funding round.

The funding was secured through a Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT) sale, DexGuru CEO Nick Sawinyh told The Block. A SAFT is an investment contract that promises the delivery of tokens at a future date.

ParaFi Capital led the round, with participation from Lemniscap, Divergence Ventures, Loi Luu of Kyber Network, Evgeny Yurtaev of Zerion, and several others.

With fresh capital at hand, DexGuru looks to scale its current team of nine, improve the user experience for traders on its platform, and launch a token in Q1 of next year, Sawinyh told The Block.

When asked why DexGuru needs its own token, Sawinyh said, "certain analytics features would require users to hold tokens to get full access to the platform."

While the round seems small, it was "oversubscribed at least by 3x," Sawinyh told The Block. "We raised just enough to build the product and launch a token."

DexGuru was launched earlier this year and allows users to trade crypto as well as interact with on-chain data. "We rank and label wallets based on on-chain trading activity, so traders can access real-time deal flow for any token and who's buying or selling those tokens," Sawinyh told The Block.

Looking ahead, "we're going to make money later with certain analytics features that would be required in a paid tier subscription," said Sawinyh. "It could be real-time alerts for whales' funds movements, detecting transaction patterns when whales are accumulating or dumping."

Sawinyh also runs DeFi media platform DeFi Prime and it will continue to operate independently, he said.

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Yogita Khatri is a senior reporter at The Block, covering all things crypto. As one of the earliest team members, Yogita has played a pivotal role in breaking numerous stories, exclusives and scoops. With nearly 3,000 articles under her belt, Yogita holds the records as The Block's most-published and most-read author of all time. Prior to joining The Block, Yogita worked at crypto publication CoinDesk and The Economic Times, where she wrote on personal finance. To contact her, email: [email protected]. For her latest work, follow her on X @Yogita_Khatri5.