DeFi protocol Renzo has declared a $3.2 million seed round, backed by leading cryptocurrency native funds. Renzo plans to use the funds to further develop its liquid restaking protocol, which has recently gone live on EigenLayer.
Renzo’s seed round was headed by Maven11, and further investments were made by Figment Capital, SevenX, IOSG, Paper Ventures, and other investors. The fundraising comes at an unprecedented moment of interest in EigenLayer’s liquid restaking. Since Renzo’s protocol was implemented in late December, more than 2,000 customers have deposited $20M in ETH (9K ETH).
Commenting on the funding round, Renzo Founding Contributor Lucas Kozinski said:
“It’s a pleasure to welcome so many distinguished investors who share our vision of making restaking accessible to everyone. With their support we will make Renzo the most reliable on/off ramp for Ethereum restaking, building upon the new capabilities offered by EigenLayer.”
Balder Bomans, Founder and Managing Partner at Maven11, added:
“Renzo’s focus on security, risk mitigation and open finance is, in our view, the best way to tackle a liquid and decentralized governance procedure for picking Actively Validated Services (AVS) on Eigenlayer. Renzo delivers risk-adjusted strategies and liquid representations while providing security to restakers.”
Renzo provides automated liquid restaking solutions on EigenLayer via the use of operator nodes and smart contracts. This facilitates the management of liquidity and the potential to profit from Ethereum staking while also exploring other restaking possibilities. Renzo allows Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs) and Ethereum (ETH) to be restaked and used as DeFi collateral to generate compound rewards.
Renzo will be run by a DAO that oversees operators, AVS restaking strategies and protocol settings in order to facilitate decentralization. With an emphasis on institutional on/off ramps, next releases will include support for cross-chain restaking, integration with lending markets, liquidity aggregators, and vault products.
Renzo makes use of ezETH, a restaked ETH position that users may mint by adding Ethereum or LSTs to the platform’s smart contracts. Similar to cbETH and rETH, this fully-backed ERC20 token may be utilized throughout the DeFi ecosystem to earn incentives in ETH, USDC, and Actively Validated Services (AVS) tokens.
