Puffer Finance, a blockchain infrastructure company, has raised $5.5 million in a seed funding round co-led by Lemniscap and the joint venture of Lightspeed and Faction. Other investors included Brevan Howard Digital, the digital asset arm of the global asset manager with $30 billion in assets under management. Bankless Ventures, Animoca Ventures, KuCoin Ventures, DACM, LBK, SNZ, and Canonical Crypto also participated in the round.
The new capital will be used to accelerate the development of Puffer’s open-source Secure-Signer product and create a permissionless staking pool. Secure-Signer is a remote signing tool that limits access to validator keys to reduce the risk of being slashed due to software bugs or user error. Puffer is also working on a protocol to make at-home staking a viable alternative to centralized liquid staking providers.
We hope the Puffer Protocol will create a pocket within the validator set where decentralization can thrive, said Puffer founders Amir Forouzani and Jason Vranek. By lowering barriers to entry, anyone can run a Puffer Node from their home to operate Web3 infrastructure and play a pivotal role in shaping a Web3 that is resilient and censorship-resistant.
Puffer previously received backing from The Ethereum Foundation through a $120,000 grant, and a $650,000 pre-seed round led by Jump Crypto.