Crypto lending platform, Maple Finance, recently announced that it had managed to raise funds of $5 million, with the round led by Blocktower Capital and Tioga Capital.
The other participants in the fundraising round included The Spartan Group, Veris Ventures, Cherry Ventures, and GSR Ventures.
The investment
Thomas Klocanas, Blocktower Capital’s head of venture and general partner, said that they view Maple as a gateway for institutions entering the crypto space and ensuring sustainable growth in the market as a whole.
He said that it was a value-added and natural option because it enables third-party experts to scale and operate lending businesses on-chain.
Credit professionals and pool delegates can use Maple Finance to launch their own credit facility on the blockchain.
This gives them the opportunity to offer their services various borrowers who are also part of the pool. For instance, a lending pool worth $300 million had been launched on Maple Finance by Icebreaker Finance.
This was to provide assistance to Bitcoin miners who had been suffering due to the bear market. A new pool was also rolled out by the platform recently.
This gives accredited investors in the US the opportunity to gain exposure to tokenized treasury bills.
In both scenarios, the lending pools that are launched are based on the Maple platform, but it is not directly involved.
There is delegation by the pool, which means that lenders are responsible for verifying and underwriting their risk.
The capital
Maple will use the funds that it has raised from the latest round to expand its services globally, with its specific target being the APAC region.
This is because there are a number of jurisdictions in APAC that have recently introduced pro-crypto regulations, which include Hong Kong and Singapore.
Hong Kong had also announced earlier this year that crypto trading services would once more become available to retail investors, which had given rise to speculation that China would follow suit.
As far as Singapore is concerned, it has come up with clear rules for the crypto industry for issuing licenses and operating and a number of crypto exchanges have been set up in the region.
Lending space
Sidney Powell, the CEO of Maple Finance, said that places like Hong Kong and Singapore have seen a lot of activity.
He added that there was also regulatory clarity for crypto in the sector, which had mostly been positive, thereby making it an attractive market.
As lending heavyweights like Celsius, BlockFi and Genesis Lending have collapsed, the institutional lending space turned into an underserved market and Powell took up this opportunity.
Not only is Maple offering third-party pool creation, but it is also working on its own pure-play lending arm and the funds raised will also be used for making that expansion.
Maple Direct was introduced in June and offers over-collateralized loans, where collateral will be Ethereum, Bitcoin, and staked Ethereum.
Powell said that with major lending platforms exiting, they believe there is an opportunity for Maple Finance to offer an over-collateralized lending product.