Since ETHDenver 2020 we have been building out Swivel, the decentralized protocol for fixed-rate lending and interest-rate derivatives, as a small team of two working with the constraints of a minimal self-funded budget. **Today, we are happy to announce that this changes with the closing of our 1.15M seed round led by Multicoin Capital. **The round includes additional investment from industry leaders Electric Capital, CMS Holdings, Divergence Ventures and Defiance Capital as well as influential angels including Stani Kulechov, CEO of Aave, Alex Pack, Huobi Advisor, and Imran Khan of DeFi Alliance. We plan to use these funds to rev-up our development cycle and push towards our anticipated Swivel v1 mainnet launch
For our initial release, Swivel v1 will facilitate trustless interest-rate swaps, allowing cautious lenders to lock in a guaranteed yield, and speculators to leverage their rate exposure, placing Swivel in a unique spot within the market.
While we have been hearing demand for fixed-rate lending for some time, and we expect that fixed lending demand will continue to grow, at Swivel we feel that rate hedging and speculation will be the impetus for industry expansion. That said, as the practical source for both fixed-rates and significant rate exposure, we expect that those looking to hedge borrowed positions or speculate on rates will be especially excited to take advantage of the opportunity that Swivel v1 introduces to the Ethereum ecosystem.
Our Story:
In the days before the world stopped leaving their homes, my co-founder William Hsieh and I started working on Swivel, then DefiHedge, at ETHDenver2020. We left ETHDenver with a ton of initial momentum, finished our basic on-chain proof-of-concept and, with some potential investor encouragement, then began working full time on Swivel.
Coming off that push and looking for an opportunity to legitimize the project, we then joined Gitcoin’s Kernel Fellowship Genesis cohort, an experience that has been integral to getting where we are today. Kernel of course accelerated our development, but more importantly introduced us to a community of developers and thought leaders that have been invaluable. Between contributions to our liquidity incentive design from Status’ Andy Tudhope and continuous input from Kernel mentor and now Swivel contibutor Thomas Klocanas, we came out of Kernel with a novel protocol design and the guidance we needed. Further, thanks in part to the investor platform Kernel provided, we were able to come out of demo day with the support of our earliest investors, Imran Khan and Qiao Wang.
And then came crypto twitter! I had recently written an article on fair launch mechanism design and decided to join in on a casual thread started by Multicoin’s Kyle Samani. Apparently I made an impression and Multicoin didn’t hesitate to reach out. Both parties quickly came to the conclusion that Multicoin’s investment thesis aligns with Swivel’s intentions and within a few calls *magic was in the air*. With the support of Multicoin and our prolific DeFi angels, we were then able to be discerning when selecting the rest our support leading to the spectacular group of investors seen below.
Funds:
Angels:
Whats Next:
A lot… We’re elated and humbled to have received the support that has gotten us where we are today, but this is just step one.
Hiring:
With the funding provided in this round we can begin scaling our team for the push towards our mainnet release. This is a rare opportunity to get in on the ground floor and make a real impact on the world’s future financial infrastructure and we are hiring our first teammates remotely around the globe. If you know anyone that might be interested in a position, we are now offering an additional $1000 referral bonus, just reach out to [email protected] or through our jobs portal!
Announcements:
We have placed 1500 USDC in a wallet with a freshly generated mnemonic. We have already hidden parts of the mnemonic around all things Swivel Finance and over the coming weeks will be revealing the final hidden words providing hints to any that remain unfound!
The clue for the first mnemonic word is: 13-12, 1-5, 6-16, 17-3, 5-1, 1-5. (within this post!)
For confirmation that you did, in fact, find one of the hidden mnemonics and to confirm their order, dm @TraversaJulian on twitter.
Stay tuned for continuous development, design and research updates and keep an eye out for hints along the way.
Join us on our new Discord and follow us on Twitter to stay in the loop and make sure you dont miss any clues,
—Julian Traversa, Swivel Finance