Solana-Based Drift Raises $25M Toward Goal of Becoming ‘Robinhood of Crypto:’ Report

Drift raised $25 million in a Series B funding round led by Multicoin Capital.

The decentralized finance platform plans to build an array of financial services tools, including spot and derivatives trading and a predictions market.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Drift raised $25 million in Series B funding to expand its Solana-based exchange, Fortune reported on Thursday. The round was led by led by Multicoin Capital.

Drift plans to build an array of financial services tools, including spot and derivatives trading and a predictions market to become the “Robinhood of crypto,” co-founder Cindy Leow said, according to the report. The company intends to double its headcount to 50 within the next year.

As a decentralized platform, Drift differentiates itself from centralized exchanges in that there is no single entity in control of users’ funds. Drift’s protocol is governed by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and an associated token, DRIFT, which has risen 2.1% in the last 24 hours to just above $0.71.

Solana is the closest competitor to Ethereum, which remains comfortably the biggest blockchain for DeFi activity. However, Leow says she thinks Solana is still the best venue for a platform like Drift.

“When we’re thinking about a future where every single asset will be tokenized … we don’t think that an issuer is actually going to look at Ethereum,” she said, according to the report. “They’re probably going to look at the chain that has the highest amount of activity, the highest amount of users, and the most seamless integration.”

Drift did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for further comment.