Participated · Equity · Apr 2023

iZUMi Finance is a multichain DeFi protocol that provides one-step "liquidity-as-a-service," enabling conversion of one asset into another asset or cash. Its product suite includes iZiSwap Pro, an automated market maker-driven order book decentralized exchange available on the zkSync Era network. The company says iZiSwap Pro reduces transaction costs and mitigates custody risks compared with similar products. iZUMi has roughly $25 million in total value locked, per Defi Llama. The recent fundraise is intended to provide early liquidity for iZiSwap Pro. The protocol also issues on-chain financial instruments via partners to structure investor exposures. iZUMi Finance is a multi-chain DeFi protocol that provides Liquidity-as-a-Service (LaaS) and liquidity-mining products such as LiquidBox and the iZiSwap DEX. Its core DEX, iZiSwap, uses a Discretized-Liquidity-AMM (DLAMM) model to discretize price ticks, reduce slippage, enable a limit-order feature, and improve capital efficiency versus traditional AMMs. The protocol also launched iUSD, a U.S. dollar-pegged, 100% collateral-backed bond, and uses Bond Voucher and iUSD sales as fundraising and liquidity tools. As of May 18, iZiSwap had accumulated over $13M TVL and generated over $500k in trading volume within two weeks of its soft launch, and on several BNB Chain pairs it exceeded competitors in liquidity depth. iZUMi has established products and partnerships including a veNFT DAO, a collaboration with HOURAI, and liquidity work with BitDAO, and plans to extend liquidity services to multi-chains with built-in DEX and bridges. Founder Xinshu Dong leads the platform, which promotes Bond Farming to lower impermanent loss for LPs and structures revenue to repay investors first while rewarding market makers, with security involvement from partners like Solv Protocol, EthSign and Cobo Wallet. izumi Finance builds tools to optimize liquidity strategies on Uniswap v3. It designs non-homogenous liquidity incentives and Uniswap V3 LP staking protocols that target specific price ranges to improve incentive distribution and boost liquidity provider earnings. The team says its approach lets projects use Uniswap v3 without requiring extra liquidity and aims to make Uniswap v3 more competitive with Curve in stablecoin trading. izumi introduced a purpose-made C-AMM bridge to link Uniswap v3 to other blockchains and plans to extend service to the multi-chain world. The company is also focused on NFT-centric initiatives for Uniswap and enabling access to emerging "financial NFTs." izumi completed a $2.1 million strategic funding round to advance its liquidity ecosystem.