DeFi Protocol Raises $3.2 Million in Seed Round

Summary:
• Renzo is keen on expanding its liquid staking platform built on EigenLayer, as well as managing liquidity and leveraging Ethereum staking.

Renzo, the DeFi protocol, has raised $3.2 million in a seed round backed by leading crypto native funds. The round was led by Maven11, with participation by Figment Capital, SevenX, IOSG, and Paper Ventures were among the several follow-on investors. Renzo says it will use the funds to expand its recently launched liquid platform on EigenLayer.

By leveraging the new capabilities provided by EigenLayer, Renzo will be able to advance its mission of creating the most dependable on/off ramp for Ethereum restaking. The new funds have come at an opportune moment when EigenLayer’s liquid restaking is attracting greater interest than ever before. Since Renzo’s protocol went live in late December, over 2,000 users have injected $20 million (9k ETH) into the system.

Understanding the Renzo mission

Renzo is an EigenLayer-based liquid restaking platform that lets users receive incentives from Ethereum restaking that compound over time. Using a mix of smart contracts and operator nodes to achieve ideal risk/reward strategies, Renzo runs an optimised on/off ramp for restaking through automated liquid yield strategies.

The automated liquid restaking solutions enables a more efficient way of managing liquidity and leveraging Ethereum staking while investigating other restaking prospects are both made easier. With Renzo, users can restake Ethereum and Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs) and use them as collateral for DeFi, so you can receive incentives that compound over time.

Using ezETH, users on Renzo can also mint tokens using LSTs or ETH deposited into the platform’s smart contracts. In the DeFi ecosystem, this fully-backed ERC20 token can be used to earn AVS tokens, which are identical to cbETH and rETH, as well as ETH and USDC.

Renzo’s operations will be governed by a DAO, which will manage operators, AVS restaking strategies, and protocol settings, which will promote decentralisation further.  In the future, Renzo will prioritise vault products, interaction with lending markets, liquidity aggregators, and cross-chain restaking in future versions, along with institutional on/off ramps.