# Stader Labs completes $4M funding raise to expand crypto staking

Stader Labs, a cryptocurrency staking management platform, announced on Thursday a $4 million financing round to accelerate development across multiple blockchains — including Ethereum, Near and Polkadot — as well as broadening its marketing campaigns.

The funding raise was conducted by Pantera Capital, with participation from a prominent number of venture capital funds, blockchain foundations and angel investors, including Coinbase Ventures, True Ventures, Hypershare, TerraForm Labs and the Solana Foundation.

Stader Labs aggregates decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and applications into a simplified staking solution for delegators in a bid to maximize their returns. The current offering includes staking, liquid staking, derivatives and gaming as well as high-yield strategies.

Co-founder and CEO of Stader Labs Amitej Gajjala commented on the firm’s ambitions:

“We hope to empower cryptoasset staking throughout the financial sector, making it easy and intuitive for investors to stake assets and generate returns.”

A report published by JPMorgan Chase in July estimated that Ethereum’s transition to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism will increase the staking payout from $9 billion to $20 billion.

In early August, prior to Ethereum’s EIP-1559 upgrade, Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead predicted that Ether (ETH) will surpass Bitcoin (BTC) as the leading crypto asset, citing its capabilities of mining energy consumption and its vast impact on DeFi as reasons for the growth.

Related: Staking will eat proof-of-work for breakfast — Here’s why

Commenting on the Stader funding raise, Pantera Capital partner Paul Veradittakit said:

“We will provide aggregation and decentralization to staking assets and derivatives across both protocols and validators. We believe that the staking user experience can be improved for both retail and institutions, and Stader Labs is poised to play a major role in the mass adoption of staking solutions.”