Binance Labs, the $10 billion venture capital and incubation arm of the crypto exchange Binance, has invested in Lombard Finance, a Bitcoin BTC -0.70% liquid staking platform.

Talks between Lombard and Binance Labs began "a couple of months ago," Jacob Phillips, co-founder and head of strategy at Lombard, told The Block. Phillips declined to specify the structure of the Binance Labs investment round, saying it was "very standard."

He also declined to disclose Lombard's valuation in the latest round but noted that the startup's total funding now stands in the $17 million range. That's up from its $16 million seed round about four months ago, implying an investment of about $1 million by Binance Labs.

Lombard is a Bitcoin liquid staking platform built on Babylon, another Binance Labs portfolio company focused on Bitcoin staking. Binance Labs is an active investor in the staking and restaking space across multiple blockchain ecosystems — including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and Berachain — having backed several platforms like Puffer Finance, Renzo, Solayer and Infrared.

Lombard has developed LBTC, a Bitcoin liquid staking token. "LBTC represents Bitcoin staked into Babylon," Phillips said. "It allows users to earn a native yield from providing economic security to networks via Babylon and participate in DeFi, all while maintaining the value of the original asset."

Launched about two months ago, Lombard's LBTC is already being used as collateral for lending, borrowing, yield farming and trading with DeFi protocols such as Pendle, Maple Finance, Morpho and ZeroLend, Phillips said. Lombard's current total value locked (TVL) is over $640 million, according to data from its website.

"Lombard is driven by the fact that if just 10% of Bitcoin's $1.5 trillion market cap flows into DeFi, the TVL in the ecosystem could more than double, catalyzing unprecedented growth and enabling sustainable market dynamics over time," Phillips said.

With the new funding from Binance Labs, Lombard plans to expand access to LBTC across new blockchains, allowing users to stake BTC and mint LBTC. BNB Chain is the first blockchain LBTC will expand to, Phillips said, adding that it will allow Binance bitcoin (BTCB) holders to receive LBTC. "BTCB is a derivative of Bitcoin that doesn't bear a yield — by switching to LBTC, users will benefit from Babylon staking yields over time," he said.

Over time, LBTC will become available on blockchains where there is significant DeFi activity, including Ethereum Layer 2 networks Base, Arbitrum, Scroll as well as Solana, Phillips said. "Lombard will work with every chain/Layer 2, all the blue-chip DeFi protocols, and soon CEXs [centralized exchanges]," he added.

There are currently about 15 people working for Lombard, with the majority of the team in product and engineering roles, Phillips said, adding that he looks to hire a few people across engineering, product design, growth and marketing functions.

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