There are several reasons why Southeast Asia could potentially be the next hotbed for Decentralised Finance (DeFi). In an opinion piece published by Forkast, Michael Conn, CEO, Chairman & Co-Chief Investment Director at Zilliqa Capital, the region’s relatively high level of unbanked population, combined with its “burgeoning” rate of digital literacy, provides plenty of opportunities for DeFi platforms to seize.
“DeFi’s model of peer-to-peer engagement and inventiveness has created a significant opportunity for the making of real-world solutions to the challenges that exist of giving people a proverbial ‘seat at the table’,” he writes.
“The possibilities for financial inclusion alongside the accretive upside that these types of businesses generate mean that throughout the ASEAN and Indian region entrepreneurs, technologists, investors and innovators are working side-by-side to create open markets that can truly help everybody.”
In recent years, we have begun to see several DeFi platforms making waves in SEA through their innovation, funding announcement, and groundbreaking insight into the future of finance. In this listicle, we compiled a list of such platforms –but we believe that these companies would not be the last.
In fact, we expect to regularly update this list as we dig deeper into the Web3 space in the region. But let us start with these 13 companies:
Also Read: Demystifying NFTs and DeFi
Alpha Venture DAO
Formerly known as Alpha Finance Lab, Alpha Venture DAO’s mission is to become an innovation lab that pushes ground-breaking products that maximise returns for cryptocurrency holders.
In October 2020, it announced a partnership with SCB 10X, the venture arm of Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank. The partnership is aimed at bridging the gap between traditional banking and emerging financial technology with a new suite of DeFi products under the umbrella of Alpha.
Ape Board
Earlier in May, Coindesk wrote about on-chain data platform Nansen acquiring decentralized finance (DeFi) portfolio tracker Ape Board for an “eight-figure” sum –putting it upward of US$10 million.
Ape Board lists over 375 protocols across 33 blockchains, including Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, Solana and Polygon.
Avalanche
According to a Daily Hodl report, crypto analyst Cred said that two Ethereum challengers –Solana and Avalanche– could move hard and fast during the next bounce in digital asset markets.
“These coins do well on bounces because participants are conditioned to buy names they know and like when they’re ‘cheap’ at a time when there’s no new altcoin narrative to ride …,” the analyst wrote in the Technical Roundup newsletter. “Even more colloquially, if you’re going to gamble on Bitcoin and Ethereum direction, might as well punt some Solana and Avalanche as they’ll likely rip harder if you’re right (and also nuke you harder if you’re wrong).”
BHO Network
Formerly known as Bholdus, the BHO Network is built on BHO Chain (BHC-20), a foundational and critical component of the BHO Network in enabling the development of a complete ecosystem based on blockchain technology.
In a statement, the Singapore-based company describes its mission as to enable innovations not only from new projects with breakthrough ideas in this space, but also to support any company that sees blockchain as a solution to achieve intensive margin from current operations.
It also aims to bring that support to all verticals including supply chain, media and entertainment, identity and credentials, healthcare, trade finance, financial services, government, digital assets, and retail.
Also Read: To infinity and beyond: Why 2022 will be the year of Web3
Cake DeFi
Cake DeFi described itself as a platform that aims to provide access to decentralised financial services and applications by enabling users to generate returns from their crypto and digital assets. It offers three options to generate cash flow and passive income: Lending, Staking and Liquidity Mining.
In March, the company announced the launch of Cake DeFi Ventures with US$100 million in earmarked capital.
Coin98
In January 2022, Binance Labs announced a strategic investment in Coin98 that will enable the platform to contribute to building DeFi infrastructure on Binance Smart Chain (BSC).
As a platform that builds a full suite of DeFi products, Coin98 introduces itself as Multi-Chain & NFT Super App. It allows users to swap, stake, borrow, lend, invest and earn crypto in one platform, and is constantly developing its DeFi ecosystem.
According to a blog post by Binance, Coin98 aims to build an NFT Marketplace, token launch platform, AMM on Binance Smart Chain, and make DeFi on BSC accessible to everyone.
DeZy
Launched in 2021, DeZy enables users to convert their cash into dollar-denominated stable coins, which are deposited across a range of DeFi protocols. It was started by four co-founders Eric Dadoun (CEO), Harald Lang (CTO ), Sharmini Ravindran (CMO ), and Simon Landsheer (strategic advisor). The company aims to empower people to “achieve meaningful savings, income growth and wealth accumulation” by simplifying decentralised finance.
In February, it attracted a US$2.2 million Pre-Series A funding round led by Leo Capital with participation from Iterative Capital.
MM.Finance
MM.Finance has the largest ecosystem on Cronos with its DEX, Yield Optimizer, NFT, Algo Stablecoin, and DTF.
Earlier in May, according to a CoinDesk report, the platform suffered a front-end exploit that allowed hackers to siphon out more than US$2 million in CRO tokens from users. To handle the situation, MM.Finance issued a statement that the losses will be compensated and reimbursed.
Sipher
In an interview with e27, Sipher explained how they are able to win high-profile VCs’ hearts even before its blockchain games hit the market.
“We were determined that our games should be what they are actually meant to be — fun. So, we came up with a business plan and presented it to several regional investors. We were lucky that they all shared the same opinion and even recommended us to big investors in the west. The rest is history,” recounts founder Tin Nguyen.
Also Read: You’re not really diversifying your investments by buying altcoins
Sky Mavis
Known as the company behind the popular game Axie Infinity, Vietnam-based Sky Mavis recently announced a US$150 million funding round led by Binance with participation from Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, Paradigm, and Accel Partners.
Things have not always been so smooth for Sky Mavis. In March, its Ronin validator nodes were compromised, resulting in 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC drained from the Ronin bridge. The funding round that they announced in April –combined with their own balance sheet funds– was meant to reimburse all the users affected by the hack.
Summoners Arena
Summoners Arena, which was founded in Vietnam in May 2021, is a role-playing game (RPG) that aims to redefine user experience in the blockchain gaming space. In an interview with e27, founder Hung Tran explains that it integrates traditional and blockchain gaming elements to provide a multi-layered experience for players to participate in immersive gameplay and experience true ownership over gaming assets while earning digital assets.
To date, Summoners Arena has raised US$4.25M from Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Onechain Technology, and GuildFi, among others.
Treehouse
Treehouse aims to transform on-chain data into meaningful metrics to help decentralized finance (DeFi) investors make informed financial decisions. In March, the company secured a US$18 million seed funding round.
Led by an undisclosed large fintech investor, the funding round included the participation of notable names such as Lightspeed Venture Partners, Binance, MassMutual Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Jump Capital, GSR, Wintermute, Do Kwon of Terraform Labs, and senior executives from SoftBank Vision Fund.
The company managed to secure this funding round just 11 months since its founding.
3moji
In a recent interview with e27, 3moji explained how its upgradable and composable NFT avatar system will transform how NFTs are used in games and across the metaverse.
“3moji is all about expression. This DApp (decentralised application) — a P2P app that operates autonomously on the blockchain — allows Web3 users to customise their avatars over time and purchase and combine different NFT accessories,” explains founder Shivek Khurana. “In a nutshell, we bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3 cultures, and profile pictures are just the tip of the iceberg.”
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