Crypto yield curator Gauntlet has raised $125 million in a Series C funding round, with Japan's SBI Holdings as the sole investor through its U.S. subsidiary, SBI Holdings USA, Inc.
The investment marks SBI Holdings' continued push into crypto market infrastructure. Earlier this week, the Japanese financial giant was also the sole investor in institutional crypto platform EDX Markets' $76 million Series C funding round.
With the fresh capital, Gauntlet plans to expand stablecoin coverage beyond the U.S. dollar (USD) and euro (EUR) to include the Mexican peso (MXN), Japanese yen (JPY), and other fiat-backed stablecoins. The company also plans to launch new onchain offerings and grow its global team with AI-supported operations.
Founded in 2018 as a blockchain analytics company before later shifting to crypto vault curation, Gauntlet helps institutions deploy capital onchain into DeFi markets while providing risk management and optimization services. The company said it currently curates more than $1.5 billion in assets across its vaults and works with more than 150 fintechs and institutions.
"Vaults have proven themselves to be the next major revolution in financial markets," said Tarun Chitra, co-founder and CEO of Gauntlet. "Much like ETFs increased equity participation in the U.S. equities market, we expect tokenization and vaults to increase the size of the DeFi market faster than overall stablecoin growth in the next few years."
