Bessie Liu

<div id="highlights-block_62e15d2ec3d68" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Traditional invoice financing helps businesses borrow money from reputable insurers against money owed by customers</li>
 <li>This new partnership will allow invoices to be tokenized on the blockchain</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Decentralized lending protocol Polytrade is tapping a fresh source of liquidity: DeFi loans targeting startups and midsize businesses looking for lines of credit.



Polytrade’s latest counterparty, Teller protocol, ought to permit Polytrade to tokenize real-world invoices and bring those assets on-chain.&nbsp;



In traditional finance, invoice financing helps businesses borrow money from insurers via collateral owed by borrowers. Now, on Polytrade, invoices will be assigned to the platform at the loan maturation date and then tokenized.&nbsp;



“By utilizing Teller protocol, Polytrade [can] unlock an entirely new liquidity pool, offering a wider array of qualified lenders the chance to provide trade finance credit,” Piyush Gupta, founder of Polytrade, said in a statement.&nbsp;



Ryan Berkun, CEO of Teller, told Blockworks he wanted to build Teller because he felt that for DeFi (decentralized finance) to grow up and increase market share, “we needed to expand to some type of lending based financing or under-collateralized lending.”



Knowing that borrowers were on the hunt for access to more capital to grow operations, Berkun said he&nbsp; “wanted to create an infrastructure that would make it easy for businesses to launch their own lending book.”



“That is what Teller is today — a lending marketplace that enables fintech business owners [and] developers with easy infrastructure to source capital from DeFi,” he said.&nbsp;



Unlike many other DeFi lending protocols, Teller does not have an internally operated liquidity pool.



“Every borrower is different,” Berkun said. “They need different interest rates and different terms.”&nbsp;



Teller, as such, has a number of design parallels to non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea — with loans standing in for digital collectibles. 



The protocol lets borrowers to bridge off-chain data to on-chain loan transactions. Businesses and individuals requesting assets will propose a loan request on the platform, and suppliers will commit to assets and loan requests of their choice.



The last step to seal the deal is agreeing to terms.



Berkun said Teller’s new partnership with Polytrade will help solve international financing trade problems.



“Polytrade is bringing legitimate invoicing from trade financing to the on-chain world, so they can source capital for these invoices,” he said. “They’ve been doing this since 2014 in the traditional finance world and have insurance built in on all of these invoices.”



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DeFi Lender Moves To Tokenize Real-world Loans On-chain

Jacquelyn Melinek

<div id="highlights-block_621907007df90" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Luna Foundation Guard raised $1 billion in a private token sale, while Amber Group closed a $200 million extended Series B round</li>
 <li>Amid the massive rounds, there were more modest raises too, including a $33 million Series B for InfStones and a $34 million raise for Aligned</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



As February comes to an end, cryptocurrencies are showing signs of recovery and capital is continuing to roll into crypto.



Over the past 24 hours, the cryptocurrency market was up 9.7%, according to <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/prices/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">prices</a>. The two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, bitcoin and ethereum, were up 9.9% and 11.35%, respectively, as of 9:45 am ET Friday.



Over $1.3 billion in investments poured into the crypto sector this week. This is in part due to some major funding rounds including Luna Foundation Guard’s <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/nonprofit-raises-1b-to-create-bitcoin-reserve-support-terra-ecosystem-growth/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$1 billion</a> private token sale, which is one of the largest raises in the crypto sector, and Amber Group’s <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-trading-platform-amber-group-eclipses-3b-valuation-with-latest-raise/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$200 million</a> extended Series B round.



Amid the massive rounds, there were low to multi-million dollar raises, too, including a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/blockchain-infrastructure-provider-infstones-closes-33m-series-b/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$33 million Series B</a> closed by blockchain infrastructure provider InfStones and a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/aligned-raises-34m-to-grow-defi-and-web3-infrastructure/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$34 million</a> raise by a DeFi and Web3 infrastructure platform Aligned.&nbsp;



Total value locked on DeFi (decentralized finance) protocols has surged in the past 12 months, from $52 billion to $196 billion, according to <a href="https://defillama.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">data</a> from DeFi Llama. With that hike in TVL, demand has also increased for the sector, Aligned founder Sam Cassatt told Blockworks on Thursday.



“Demand will continue to grow,” Cassatt said. “I don’t see this slowing down, it’s getting larger day by day.”&nbsp;



Web3 and DeFi dominated the emerging technology investment landscape in Q4 2021, with $2.4 billion invested across 26 deals during that time frame, according to a PitchBook report on Thursday. The two sectors accounted for about 13%, or $4.3 billion of the <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/report-vcs-invested-33b-in-crypto-and-blockchain-startups-in-2021/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$33 billion</a>, invested capital in crypto last year.



Other notable capital raises this week include:&nbsp;



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>DeFi protocol Teller served up a <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/now/teller-closes-6-85m-strategic-170000480.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$6.85 million</a> strategic raise</li><li>Blockchain-based game Cradles closed a <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/cradles-closes-5-million-private-140000428.html#:~:text=GEORGE%20TOWN%2C%20Cayman%20Islands%2C%20Feb,round%20led%20by%20Animoca%20Brands." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$5 million</a> private round led by Animoca Brands</li><li>DeFi app Catalog logged $7.5 million to help create a cross-chain and multichain future</li><li>Emerging Web3 startup Fast Break Labs filled a <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fast-break-labs-announces-6-million-seed-round-co-led-by-patron-and-pantera-capital-301488191.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$6M seed round</a> led by Patron and Pantera Capital&nbsp;</li><li>Binance-backed fantasy strategy game Heroes of Mavia roped in $2.5 million, led by Crypto.com Capital.</li></ul>



Check back next week for more funding news.



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.