Gro, a UK DeFi startup founded by former Revolut and Spotify executive Hannes Graah, has raised $7.1 million in a seed funding round led by Galaxy Digital and Framework Ventures.
Variant, Northzone, Nascent, a_capital and 3AC joined the round for Gro, which plans to use the funding to boost its headcount and begin rolling out products.
Gro says its products are designed to give people "simple and friendly" access to DeFi so they can create and share wealth by combining the best of decentralised and legacy finance.
The first product is a protocol that will enable access to optimised stablecoin yield and increased protection.
The startup says that, with interest rates at record lows, there is a huge demand for returns and that many are turning to cryptocurrencies to speculate on price increases.
However, the volatility of bitcoin and others makes them a risky investment, something that Gro says its product avoids, letting people use digitised pounds and dollars to profit from emerging financial services.