Kelp DAO, an Ethereum liquid restaking platform built on EigenLayer, has secured $9 million in a private token sale round.

Leading the round with a combined investment of $3.5 million were SCB Limited, a proprietary trading firm based in the Bahamas, and Laser Digital, the crypto arm of Nomura Global. Additional investors included Bankless Ventures, Hypersphere Ventures, Draper Dragon, DACM, Cypher Capital, GSR, HTX Ventures, and DWF Ventures. Noteworthy angel investors such as Scott Moore from Gitcoin, Sam Kazemian from Frax Finance, Marc Zeller from Aave Chan Initiative, Saurabh Sharma from Jump Crypto, and Amrit Kumar from AltLayer also participated in the round.

The private token sale commenced in February and concluded in March, according to co-founder Amitej Gajjala. The fully diluted valuation of the token was set at $90 million in February when Kelp's total value locked (TVL) was around $300 million. With Kelp's TVL now standing at approximately $961 million, Gajjala mentioned that the fully diluted valuation might increase if a new round is conducted, although there are no immediate plans for one.

Kelp plans to launch its governance token, KELP, soon pending legal and exchange due diligence. It's worth noting that KELP is distinct from KEP, which represents EigenLayer points. Kelp recently paused KEP claims due to EigenLayer's snapshot logic, rendering it non-fungible.

With the recent funding, Kelp aims to expand its liquid restaking services beyond Ethereum to other blockchains such as Bitcoin, Solana, and BNB Chain. The platform is evaluating innovative solutions like restaking synthetic Bitcoin and synthetic ETH based on carry trade, and it expects to launch these services for 1-2 chains in the third quarter of this year. Additionally, Kelp's co-founders also operate Stader Labs, a liquid staking platform with a TVL exceeding $680 million, primarily driven by Polygon (MATIC) liquid staking.