Binance Invests $12M in Liquidity Platform WOO Network
WOO had raised $30 million in November.
Updated May 11, 2023 at 4:06 p.m. UTC
The venture capital arm of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, announced a $12 million strategic investment in WOO Network, a liquidity platform that connects users to exchanges, institutions and decentralized finance (DeFi) networks.
- “WOO Network adds significant value to the crypto ecosystem by providing deep liquidity and zero-fee trading both on- and off-chain. We are excited to expand our long-lasting relationship and explore further collaborations, especially on [the Binance Smart Chain],” Peter Huo, Binance Labs investment director, said in a press release.
- WOO Network provides liquidity to more than 40 institutions, exchanges, trading teams, wallets and decentralized applications. The company’s products include WOO Trade, a platform for institutional investors, and the retail-focused WOO X, which combines zero-fee trading and deep liquidity.
- Last year, WOO Network began providing liquidity on Binance Smart Chain with the launch of WOOFi Swap, which uses the liquidity network and institutional market-making techniques to improve pricing and reduce slippage. WOO also provides liquidity to other decentralized protocols such as DYDX, Matcha, ParaSwap, 1inch and DODO.
- WOO Network closed a $30 million Series A fundraising round in November that included investments from Avalanche, BitTorrent, Crypto.com Capital and Three Arrows Capital.
- Founded in 2017, Binance Labs tends to make early-stage investments in companies such as hackathon organizer DoraHacks and interoperability startup LayerZero, but the investor and incubator has also participated in later, larger funding rounds, such as the recent $110 million Series C fundraising round for crypto staking firm Figment that was led by investment firm Thoma Bravo.
- The price for the project’s WOO tokens were up 10% over the past 24 hours, nearing a market capitalization of $1 billion, as of 11:52 coordinated universal time (6:52 a.m. ET), according to CoinGecko.