On Solana, Serum, a prominent order book-based decentralised exchange, has raised $70 million out of a total of $100 million.
According to a news statement issued today, the funding will be used to grow Serum as well as other ventures emerging inside its ecosystem.
The community-led Incentive Ecosystem Foundation, which is largely responsible for the development of Serum, has announced that it is in the midst of a $100 million fundraising round.
JHL, a pseudonymous Project Serum core participant, informed CoinDesk that the organisation had already secured around $70 million in committed capital out of the $100 million goal.
With the new finances, the foundation wants to expand the Serum ecosystem, with $15 million set aside for that goal. Incentive Ecosystem Foundation wants to use the new money to support emerging projects in DeFi, NFTs, and gaming. The remaining funds will be used to fund new hiring, hackathons, and other Project Serum growth activities.
The fundraising was done through a token sale, in which investors were issued numerous tokens from around the Serum ecosystem at a discount, usually 15%. Solana (SOL), Serum (SRM), Raydium (RAY), Oxygen (OXY), Pyth Network (PYTH), and other tokens were among them.
Commonwealth Asset Management, Tiger Capital, and officials from Golden Tree Asset Management were among the notable participants in the financing round. The investments are locked for a year, following which the tokens will vest in five years in a linear fashion.
The ecosystem is considered the backbone of DeFi on Solana, and it presently houses over 70 projects worth approximately $2 billion in total value locked (TVL).
Serum is built on a smart contract-based decentralised central limit order book mechanism. Serum’s smart contracts match buyers and sellers directly based on price-time priority, rather than relying on automated market makers.
It is designed to compete with AMM-based exchanges such as SushiSwap and Uniswap, which use liquidity pools to facilitate trade.
Sam Bankman-Fried, who is also the creator of FTX and Alameda Research, founded Serum in the onset. However, it is now maintained by the Incentive Ecosystem Foundation, a legal body that employs and compensates the core contributors.