MilkyWay CEO JayB Kim announced that the Celestia liquid staking protocol, MilkyWay, has raised $5 million in a funding round co-led by Binance Labs and Polychain Capital. Kim mentioned that other investors such as Hack VC, Crypto.com Capital, and LongHash Ventures also participated in the round. Binance Labs also announced their investment in MilkyWay to help it become a leading liquid staking protocol in the modular Blockchain ecosystem.
What Will the Funding Round Enable?
Kim stated that the fundraising round started last December and concluded about a month ago, describing it as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) and token development, with a similar structure for future tokens (SAFT) for participating investors. However, he refrained from commenting on the valuation.
Binance’s venture capital and incubation arm, Binance Labs, continues to make significant investments in the areas of staking and restaking. Recently, it has invested in several ventures such as Babylon, Renzo, Puffer Finance, and StakeStone. MilkyWay, launched last December, is the first Celestia liquid staking protocol and currently has only one competitor, Stride.
MilkyWay and Stride
JayB Kim noted that MilkyWay’s architectural design differs from Stride’s. MilkyWay’s architecture operates as a smart contract on Osmosis, whereas Stride runs its own Layer-1 Blockchain. Kim claimed that the design is simpler and maintaining a chain incurs less operational and technical overhead.
MilkyWay is specifically produced for the modular ecosystem and currently focuses only on Celestia (TIA) token liquid staking. However, Kim mentioned that Stride supports liquid staking for multiple tokens including TIA, Cosmos Hub (ATOM), dYdX (DYDX), Injective (INJ), and Juno (JUNO).
According to data, considering Stride’s broader focus, it has approximately $135 million in total locked value, which is more than MilkyWay. The funds raised in this latest round will be used to develop the protocol and attract liquid staking providers to the ecosystem. Kim emphasized that in the future, MilkyWay will strengthen its position in the industry and take a leading role in the liquid staking space.
