Sei is a layer-1 blockchain focused on trading, aiming to build infrastructure optimized for exchanges and trading-native applications. Its chain hosts projects beyond DeFi, including games, NFT marketplaces and rollups, and the team includes former employees from Goldman Sachs, Databricks, Robinhood, Google and Nvidia. The network is in public testnet, with over 120 projects building on it; its latest public testnet attracted about 3.6 million unique users and processed over 35 million transactions in less than a month. Sei raised $30 million in the new round at an $800 million valuation and previously raised a $5 million seed in August 2022. In September the project also launched a $50 million ecosystem and liquidity fund to support DeFi applications on its platform. Management said the new capital is intended to secure strategic partners ahead of mainnet—planned for later this year, hopefully in Q2—and to expand the project's presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Sei is the first Layer 1 blockchain specifically optimized for DeFi applications, with a built-in order matching engine, native frontrunning protection, and 600 ms finality. Its core product enables any app to instantly spin up customizable orderbook markets for spot, derivatives, options, sports betting and more. The network aims to occupy a design space between general-purpose chains and app-specific chains to provide tradeoffs tailored to financial use cases. At the time of the announcement, over 20 dApps were building in the Sei ecosystem. The company said the new capital will be used to support the network as it approaches mainnet launch and to accelerate ecosystem growth.

Total raised

$35M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Apr 2023