Lombard Raises $16M Seed Round to Kick-start the Bitcoin Restaking Ecosystem

Lombard is excited to announce the successful closure of a $16 million seed funding round to develop the Bitcoin restaking ecosystem in collaboration with Babylon. Polychain Capital led the seed round with participation from BabylonChain, Inc., dao5, Franklin Templeton, Foresight Ventures, HTX Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Mantle EcoFund, Nomad Capital, OKX Ventures, and Robot Ventures. Strategic partnerships and contributions from major exchanges - Bitget, Bybit, OKX, HTX, and more - were established to aggregate net-new liquidity to their businesses. The round welcomed additional commitments from prominent founders and executives at Allora, Altlayer, Babylon, BeraChain, Euler, Gearbox, Manta, Megaeth, Pendle, Ritual, Scroll, StakeStone, Seven Seas, and Zircuit.

Lombard aims to elevate BTC from a store of value into a productive asset which flows into the web3 economy and drives sustainable growth with its flagship product, LBTC. LBTC is a liquid and yield-bearing representation of BTC, which can move seamlessly across chains and decentralized finance as collateral without compromising security. By uniting major ecosystems and DeFi protocols to onboard LBTC, over $1.3 trillion in Bitcoin can be used to lend, borrow, and trade, providing new capital opportunities for Bitcoin holders, and new capital and users for the ecosystems and their protocols.

“Lombard’s launch is timely and pivotal. Our investment in Lombard demonstrates our belief in its potential to add immense value to the Web3 ecosystem by unlocking Bitcoin’s latent potential. Our commitment to Lombard represents a deeper belief in the leverage Bitcoin can have in catalyzing growth across the whole Blockchain space.” Olaf Carlson-Wee, Founder of Polychain Capital.

The Lombard team brings extensive experience in starting, scaling, and operating companies in the DeFi space. The team comprises executives from Argent, Coinbase, and Maple.

“Polychain is excited to announce our incubation of Lombard, a liquid Bitcoin standard that aims to redefine the use cases of Bitcoin. Lombard aims to unify the liquidity of Bitcoin with LBTC and become the connective tissue between protocols, ecosystems, and the wider decentralized finance space. The Lombard team consists of the top minds in the space who have created the most secure and innovative products around DeFi,” said Luke Pearson, General Partner at Polychain Capital leading the incubation of Lombard.

Lombard’s funding round follows a significant $70 million Series A investment into Babylon (Read more). The Babylon Staking Protocol allows Bitcoin assets to be staked in a trustless and self-custodial manner, providing economic security for Proof-of-Stake (PoS) systems, such as chains, L2 rollups and Data Availability layer.

Through Babylon, native BTC gets staked to secure PoS systems and earn yield. Lombard unlocks liquidity for the staked BTC by issuing LBTC, a liquid, yield-bearing representation of Bitcoin. LBTC will soon be integrated across the most used DeFi protocols on Ethereum Mainnet before launching on popular L2 chains later in the year.

“Lombard’s cross-chain LBTC product taps into the vast pool of parked Bitcoin liquidity, enhancing the supply-side into Babylon’s Bitcoin staking protocol. We are pleased that Lombard has received significant funding so we can continue our close collaboration, fill a critical void in the market, and drive substantial growth,” said David Tse, Co-Founder of Babylon.

LBTC surpasses similar tokens because it’s natively cross-chain and will be integrated across the ecosystem. The benefits of its cross-chain nature will be realized by holders, chains and their protocols as LBTC aggregates liquidity, finds novel use cases and the ecosystem rebuilds itself on top of yield-bearing liquid restaked assets, a path proven in the Ethereum ecosystem by Lido, EigenLayer, Ether.Fi.

LBTC will soon be accessible to all and supported by all chains and DeFi protocols. Join the LBTC Waitlist for exclusive access to LBTC and rewards for early participation: https://lombard.finance/#LBTC_waitlist

Hear what investors have to say about Lombard:

"We are incredibly excited to partner with Polychain and Lombard as they continue to push the boundaries of the Web3 and Bitcoin ecosystem. Lombard has the potential to significantly enhance the liquidity and utility of BTC. Together with our strategic partners, Bybit and Mantle Network, we are eager to accelerate this opportunity and drive innovation in the space.” David Toh, Managing Partner at Mirana Ventures.

“Liquid restaking is the next evolution for Bitcoin. We’ve seen the success of restaking elsewhere and now Lombard is here to unlock over a trillion dollars worth of 'dry powder' within the ecosystem. We eagerly anticipate the ripple effects Lombard will create, positively influencing the DeFi landscape and empowering Bitcoin holders to do more with their assets. dao5’s investment reflects our commitment to groundbreaking ideas and visionary founders.” Tekin Salimi, Founder, dao5.

“Lombard consists of some of the most experienced individuals at understanding novel and state of the art cryptography; their experience will strengthen the Bitcoin restaking ecosystem by an order of magnitude.” Tarun Chitra, Founder, Gauntlet.

“Bitcoin restaking tokens are the next frontier and Lombard is leading the charge while putting security first.” Spadaboom.

Join us on our journey:

• Visit the website: https://lombard.finance
• Read through the documentation: https://docs.lombard.finance/
• Join the conversation on Telegram: https://t.me/+e8F4-kY9bKVlMDcx
• Meet the community in Discord: https://discord.com/invite/2HG7G69twc
• Follow @Lombard_Finance on Twitter: https://x.com/Lombard_Finance
• Follow Lombard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lombardfinance/

About Lombard

Named after the historic Lombard Street in London—a hub of financial activity since the Middle Ages—Lombard symbolizes a place where all participants are connected to opportunity. By adopting the Lombard name, we rebuild its legacy on digital blocks, transforming it into a modern nexus of innovation and connectivity.

Founded in April 2024, Lombard is dedicated to unlocking Bitcoin's potential as a dynamic financial tool by connecting it to DeFi. We are a diverse team of DeFi natives, working with technology and infrastructure partners towards a shared, ecosystem-driven mission to collectively onboard Bitcoin to DeFi.

About Polychain Capital

Polychain Capital, founded in 2016 by Olaf Carlson-Wee, is a premier investor in cryptocurrency protocols and companies which utilizes its highly crypto-native team through a hands-on, participatory approach towards investments with the goal to accelerate the global adoption of crypto.

About Babylon

Babylon is a project that designs Bitcoin security sharing protocols with a vision of building a Bitcoin-secured decentralized world. Its latest development is the world’s first trustless and self-custodial Bitcoin staking protocol, which enables bitcoin holders to stake their BTC on Proof-of-Stake (PoS) systems such as PoS chains, L2s, Data Availability (DA) layers, etc., enabling them to earn yield without the need for third-party custody, bridge solutions, or wrapping services. Babylon's approach combines the high security and wide adoption of Bitcoin with the efficiency and scalability of PoS systems, increasing Bitcoin's utility. Babylon was founded in 2022 by Stanford Professor David Tse and Dr. Fisher Yu. Professor Tse is a member of the U.S. Academy of Engineering and is renowned as the inventor of the legendary proportional-fair scheduling algorithm for wireless communications. Babylon is led by a team of consensus protocol researchers and experienced layer 1 engineers from around the world.

For more information about the Babylon project, please visit: Website: www.babylonchain.io Twitter: https://twitter.com/babylon_chain