The capital will be used to expand its team, invest in security auditing, grow the current protocol while also building more DeFi protocols, Ruan said
“We want to build DeFi solutions for normal people and for mass adoption,” Ruan said. “We want to bring DeFi to the mainstream.”

Staking and lending protocol Parallel Finance has closed a strategic funding round bringing its valuation to $250 million.

The investment was led by Sequoia and Founders Fund with participation from Shima Capital. The company raised “a couple million” for the round, but Parallel Finance’s CEO Yubo Ruan declined to disclose a specific amount during an interview with Blockworks.

This capital raise comes shortly after the company’s Series A round in August. Over the span of three months, Parallel Finance’s valuation has increased about 67% from $150 million to $250 million, Ruan said.

Parallel Finance is a decentralized money market protocol that offers lending, staking and borrowing on the Polkadot and Kusama blockchain ecosystems. Its latest valuation makes the protocol one of the highest-valued projects on Polkadot, the company said in a statement. For reference, Polkadot is a Web3 layer-zero platform that enables people to launch on a blockchain, Ruan said.

The capital will be used to expand its team, invest in security auditing, grow the current protocol while also building more DeFi protocols, Ruan said.

In the future, the company plans to complete another funding round that “will be quite large,” and bring its valuation higher, Ruan said.

“We want to build DeFi solutions for normal people and for mass adoption,” Ruan said. “We want to bring DeFi to the mainstream,” he added.

“[Ruan] is the Elon Musk-type founder in crypto who will build differentiated DeFi products on any layer 1 protocol he and his team set their minds to,” said Yida Gao, managing partner of Shima Capital, referring to their decision to invest in the Parallel Finance.