UAE-Based DeFi Platform ZKX Raises $4.5 Million Seed Round

Dubai-based DeFi platform ZKX secured $4.5 million in seed funding from StarWare, Alameda Research, Amber Group, Huobi, and Crypto.com among others. Founded in 2021 by Eduard Jubany Tur, Naman Sehgal, and Vitaly Yakovleve, ZKX is a decentralized finance platform that facilitates quicker transactions and keeps gas costs down.

The funds were raised despite concerns of a cryptocrash and a funding winter. The funding will be used to expand the ZXK ecosystem, fund DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), and continue to develop its open-source protocol.

The crypto market has been turbulent lately. The value of the cryptocurrency market fell below $1 trillion in June for the first time since January 2021, according to data site CoinMarketCap, reaching as low as $926 billion. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, has also dropped by around 65% as of mid-June.

The Middle East market is yet to feel the pinch of the market downturn. Several cryptocurrency exchanges have emerged during the past 12 months, including UAE’s BitOasis, raising $30 million in funding in 2021; Bahrain’s CoinMENA, raising $9.5 million seed round last year; and Yoshi Markets, which has received approval this year from Abu Dhabi to regulate the marketplace.

“The downturn is driven by the Federal Reserve tightening interest rates and driving de-risking across asset classes,” Eduard Jubany Tur, Founder at ZKX, tells StartupScene. “Alameda, Crypto.com, and our other partners have been actively fostering and building the Web3 ecosystem for years. This should only strengthen the ecosystem in the long run by cleaning up the bad apples and focusing on the strongest players.”

The platform aims to address some key challenges of the DeFi market, including over reliance on centralized entities, scalability, and high gas fees for traders.