Aurora protocol Aurigami raises $12 million in token rounds

Aurigami, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol based on the Aurora network, has raised $12 million in token rounds.

Sharing the news exclusively with The Block on Thursday, Aurigami said out of the total funding, $9.5 million was raised via a private token sale, and $2.5 million via an initial exchange offering (IEO) on KuCoin, Bybit and Impossible Finance. The private token sale closed in February and the IEO in May.

Crypto venture capital firms Dragonfly Capital and Polychain Capital co-led the private token round. Other investors included Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, Jump Crypto, Amber Group and QCP Capital.

Angel investors, including Aurora CEO Alex Shevchenko, Etherscan CEO Matthew Tan, former ParaFi partner Santiago Santos and CoinGecko co-founders Bobby Ong and TM Lee also participated.

Investors purchased Aurigami's native token PLY. It is currently trading at around $0.001, down 95% from its all-time high of about $0.02, according to CoinGecko.

Aurigami was launched earlier this year. It is a lending and borrowing protocol on Aurora, a subnet of the NEAR blockchain. Aurigami is currently the second largest lending protocol on Aurora behind Bastion, according to data from DeFi Llama. Its current total value locked (TVL) stands at over $20 million, while Bastion's TVL stands at over $130 million.

When asked how Aurigami plans to increase its TVL, its co-founder EY Tan told The Block that the project has two main plans in that regard. First, enabling NEAR's native stablecoin USN as a borrowable asset, and second, supporting cross-chain lending and borrowing.

With fresh capital in hand, Aurigami also plans to expand its current team size of 10 and grow its ecosystem, said Tan. The project is currently mainly hiring developers.