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Acala Network has raised $7.0M across 1 funding round.
Key people at Acala Network.
Acala Network was founded in 2019 by Bette Chen (Co-Founder) and Antonia Chen (Co-founder & Chief Economist) and Ruitao Su (Co-Founder) and Bryan Chen (Co-Founder).
Acala Network has raised $7.0M in total across 1 funding round.
Acala Network is a decentralized finance platform and liquidity hub built as a Polkadot parachain, operating primarily out of Auckland, New Zealand. The network provides cross-chain open finance infrastructure, offering services such as a decentralized exchange, staking derivatives, and an algorithmic stablecoin. The organization has secured over $30 million in venture funding and won the first Polkadot parachain auction in 2021 with community contributions of 32 million DOT, valued at approximately $1.3 billion at the time. Backed by prominent investors including Pantera Capital, Polychain Capital, and Coinbase Ventures, the platform has attracted more than 200,000 users. Following a major exploit in 2022, the project implemented its Exodus upgrade in late 2023 to revamp tokenomics and establish a sustainable liquidity layer. Acala Network was founded in 2019 by Ruitao Su, Bette Chen, Bryan Chen, and Fuyao Jiang.
Acala Network was founded in 2019 by Bette Chen (Co-Founder) and Antonia Chen (Co-founder & Chief Economist) and Ruitao Su (Co-Founder) and Bryan Chen (Co-Founder).
Acala Network has raised $7.0M in total across 1 funding round.
Acala Network's investors include 1confirmation, CrunchFund, Heartcore Capital, Look Up Ventures, Pantera Capital, Sweet Capital, Winklevoss Capital, Ben Davenport.
Key people at Acala Network.
Acala Network has raised $7.0M across 1 funding round. Most recently, it raised $7.0M Series A in August 2020.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 1, 2020 | $7M Series A | — | 1confirmation, CrunchFund, Heartcore Capital, Look UP Ventures, Pantera Capital, Sweet Capital, Winklevoss Capital, BEN Davenport | Announced |
Acala Network is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform and Layer-1 blockchain built for the Polkadot ecosystem, offering Ethereum-compatible smart contracts, a multi-collateral stablecoin (aUSD), and protocols for liquidity, staking, and trading.[1][2][3] It serves developers, DeFi users, and institutions by providing cross-chain interoperability, low fees, and scalable financial primitives like an AMM DEX (Acala Swap), Honzon stablecoin protocol, and Homa liquidity staking, solving liquidity fragmentation and stability issues in multi-chain environments.[2][3][4] With $7.35M raised in Series B funding since 2019, Acala powers DeFi apps and backend infrastructure trusted by firms like Coinbase and Figment, capturing significant TVL in Polkadot (~$214M as of recent data).[1][4][5]
Acala Network was founded in 2019 in Auckland, New Zealand, as a cooperative between Laminar and Polkawallet to build a cross-chain DeFi foundation for Polkadot.[1][2] Co-founders Fuyao Jiang, Ruitao Su, Bette Chen, and Bryan Chen led the effort, leveraging Polkadot's Substrate framework alongside Ethereum compatibility to create a liquidity hub.[2][3] Early traction included winning Polkadot's first parachain auction, launching key protocols like Honzon (stablecoin) and Homa (staking), and integrating Ethereum dApps, establishing Acala as a DeFi powerhouse with strong 2022 product rollouts.[2][4]
Acala rides the multi-chain DeFi wave, capitalizing on Polkadot's interoperability to unify liquidity across ecosystems like Ethereum, addressing silos that fragment $100B+ DeFi TVL.[2][3] Timing aligns with parachain maturity post-2021 auctions and rising demand for scalable, secure Layer-1s amid Ethereum's high fees, positioning Acala as Polkadot's DeFi hub with ~$214M ecosystem share.[4] Market forces like institutional crypto adoption (e.g., via Coinbase integrations) and tokenized assets favor its stablecoin/staking focus, influencing Polkadot by bootstrapping dApps, cross-chain bridges, and open finance standards.[1][5]
Acala is poised to expand as Polkadot's DeFi gateway, with Acala Apps 2.0, enhanced real-yield products, Tapio collaborations, and security tools like Chopsticks driving growth amid multi-chain trends.[4] Rising TradFi-blockchain convergence and interoperability demands could amplify its institutional backend role, evolving influence toward dominating Polkadot TVL and Ethereum bridges. Watch for ACA governance upgrades and parachain expansions to sustain momentum in a maturing DeFi landscape.[2][3] This cements Acala's origin as Polkadot's liquidity powerhouse into a broader Web3 infrastructure leader.[1][5]