Qiro Finance, a Singapore-based decentralized finance (DeFi) company has raised $1.2 million in its pre-seed round funding led by Alliance (an early-stage web3 accelerator), in participation from Druid Ventures, Escape Velocity (EV3), Trident Digital, and CMT Digital.
In addition to the funding round, Qiro Finance has received a 100,000 MATIC grant from Polygon as part of the ‘Polygon’s Village Build Ideas Program’ and a $50,000 development grant from the Aptos Foundation.
Founded by Akshay Poshatwar and Nishikant Bahalkar, Qiro Finance focuses on building a decentralized credit protocol to connect emerging market asset originators (NBFIs) with global investors by leveraging blockchain and stablecoin rails.
“The allocated pre-seed funding will be strategically directed to uphold the development and expansion of Qiro Finance. The primary emphasis will center on product development and ecosystem expansion in preparation for the forthcoming mainnet launch within the current year,” the company said in its statement.
Qiro is developing a decentralized credit protocol with the capability to facilitate a wide range of tokenized RWA-backed credit applications. This is achieved by unifying asset originators, investors, and credit underwriters within a single framework.
Speaking on the fundraise, Nishikant Bahalkar, CPO and Co-founder of Qiro said, “RWA credit on-chain isn’t a novel concept; however, Qiro is trailblazing open credit data and risk underwriting infrastructure for RWA credit protocols, addressing the adverse selection and credit defaults affecting on-chain credit transactions.”
Commenting on the investment in Qiro, Chris Pizzo, Co-Founder & General Partner at Druid Ventures said, “Qiro has the potential to become the de facto credit data infrastructure, featuring a scalable and robust risk management layer at the protocol level.”
Further talking about the funding round, Akshay Poshatwar, CEO & Co-founder Qiro said, “We are eagerly anticipating the journey ahead to revolutionize the private credit market. Our initial focus will revolve around supporting fintech asset originators within the Southeast Asian (SEA) markets, with an expansion roadmap encompassing other emerging markets. By harnessing the potential of DeFi and Blockchain technology, we remain resolute in establishing a more transparent, efficient, and accessible credit ecosystem.”
