Avant Raises $6.5M to Scale Its Crypto-Yield Generating Neutral Tokens

Avant, an Avalanche-based decentralised finance protocol has raised $6.5 million in a seed round backed by Superlayer, Avalaunch, GoGoPool, Daybreak Digital and

Decentralised finance protocol Avant has secured $6.5 million in a seed round led by several major crypto firms.

The round was led by Superlayer, a protocol for building and deploying decentralized applications, and included participation from Avalaunch, a decentralized application launchpad on the Avalanche network; GoGoPool, a decentralized exchange on Avalanche; Daybreak Digital, a venture capital firm focused on Web3 and early-stage technology companies; and Linda Kreitzman, an angel investor and adviser.

Avant is building crypto-yield generating neutral tokens without relying on centralized exchanges. The company’s first product, avUSD, is a “stable-value” token that can be staked to receive a yield-generating version of the token, called savUSD. Users can mint avUSD by staking the USDC or the USDT stablecoins. The product is currently in early access, allowing only a select group of whitelisted addresses to stake.

“We’re excited about Avant’s vision for scaling decentralized finance and their approach to creating crypto-yield generating neutral tokens,” said Alex Svanevik, co-founder and CEO of Superlayer, in a statement. “Their team has a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities in DeFi, and we believe their solution will be a valuable addition to the Avalanche ecosystem.”

Avant was founded in 2022 by Rhett Shipp, a former software engineer at Google and early employee at the decentralized exchange dYdX. The company is headquartered in San Francisco.

“We chose to build on Avalanche because it’s the fastest, most decentralized, and most scalable L1 chain,” said Shipp in a statement. “We’re also impressed by the community and the ecosystem that’s been built around Avalanche, and we’re excited to be a part of it.”

Avant plans to use the fresh capital to scale its product, hire more engineers, and launch its native token. The company is also exploring expanding to other Layer 1 blockchains.

“We’re grateful for the support of our investors and we’re excited to continue building Avant,” said Shipp. “We believe that our technology has the potential to revolutionize the way people earn yield on their crypto assets, and we’re looking forward to bringing our product to market.”

Avant has been compared to the Ethereum-based Ethena, which offers the $ENA token. However, Shipp explained to The Block the key difference between the two.

“Ethena’s USDe generates yield via the ‘carry trade.’ The carry trade is very high yielding in some market conditions and less so in others,” he said. “Avant engages in the carry trade too but engages in other market-neutral trades when the carry trade is less profitable. So far, this has resulted in notably higher yields than Ethena produces. Furthermore, even when the carry trade is profitable, we believe we can perform it more productively than our peers.”

According to Shipp, the product currently has just over $5 million in total value locked and fewer than 10 depositors amid its early-access strategy of enabling staking for a few selected addresses.

“That whitelist will expand over the next few weeks,” he said, adding that the avUSD and the savUSD will be open to the public in December, which he believes will pave the way for the TVL to grow.

Avant makes money by charging at least 10% in fees on the yield generated from staked tokens and plans to launch its native token AVANT in the first quarter of 2025.