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Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Balancer Labs has raised a seven-figure sum via the sale of its native governance token BAL.

The backers are Pantera Capital and Alameda Research. While Balancer did not disclose the investment amount, Alameda founder Sam Bankman-Fried told The Block that his firm invested a seven-figure sum, i.e., a minimum of $1 million. Pantera did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

With fresh capital at hand, Balancer plans to expand its team ahead of the protocol’s V2 launch. The second version will introduce “significant improvements” to transaction costs and improve user experience, said Balancer.

Balancer operates as an automated market maker protocol and can be seen as a rival to decentralized exchange protocol Uniswap. According to data compiled by The Block Research, Uniswap is ranked first and Balancer fifth in terms of trading volumes. Uniswap had $11.2 billion worth of volume in October, while Balancer got $0.35 billion, i.e., 32 times less. 

Today’s funding comes in addition to a $3 million seed round Balancer raised in March of this year. That round was led by Accomplice and Placeholder, with participation from CoinFund and Inflection.

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