Crypto quant firm Gauntlet hits $1 billion valuation after Series B round

Cryptocurrency-focused financial modeling platform Gauntlet has found a promising niche in the DeFi space, with its biggest clients including projects like Aave and Compound.

Cryptocurrency-focused financial modeling platform Gauntlet has achieved unicorn status after raising $23.8 million in Series B funding from several of the blockchain industry’s largest venture funds.

The round was led by Palo Alto-based venture firm Ribbit Capital, with participation from existing investors Paradigm and Polychain Capital, Bloomberg reported Monday. Gauntlet said the funding will be used to hire more employees and expand into new industry verticals, including gaming.

Gauntlet was founded in 2018 by Tarun Chitra, a Wall Street executive who worked at multinational hedge fund D. E. Shaw. Gauntlet provides financial modeling and simulation tools to the cryptocurrency industry with a focus on capital efficiency and risk.

In 2018, Gauntlet received its first seed investment of $2.9 million from Coinbase Ventures and five other participants, according to Crunchbase data. Two years later, the company raised another $4.4 million.

Gauntlet's $1 billion valuation reflects the rapid growth of the cryptocurrency industry over the past two years. As explained by Bloomberg, Gauntlet’s main product allows cryptocurrency projects — especially decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms — to be stress-tested, which can help them set optimal loan and collateral levels.

Gauntlet's most notable clients are Aave (AAVE) and Compound (COMP), the two largest DeFi projects based on market cap and total value locked.

Since the beginning of 2021, companies in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries have attracted a lot of venture capital, and some new “unicorns” have also been born. In the startup community, a unicorn is a company with a valuation of at least $1 billion. More than a dozen such unicorns have been crowned in the past 12 months.

As Cointelegraph reported, blockchain startups generated $25.2 billion in venture capital last year, including 59 “mega rounds” worth more than $100 million. (Cointelegraph)