Liquid Restaking Protocol Puffer Raises $18M, Led by Brevan Howard, Electric Capital
Summary
Prior to this, Puffer raised $5.5 million co-led by Lemniscap and Lightspeed Faction.Puffer is the second-largest liquid restaking protocol behind Ether.Fi, and is part of a class of protocols that have come out of the growing "restaking" field that has taken the Ethereum ecosystem by storm. EigenLayer, a restaking pioneer that launched last week albeit without some of its more highly anticipated functionality , has attracted some $12.7 billion of user deposits to become the , according to DeFiLlama.Liquid restaking protocols work by taking deposits and , which lets Ethereum stakers earn yield for using their ETH tokens to help secure third-party platforms known as "actively validated services (AVS). Puffer is an AVS on EigenLayer.Puffer then hands out their own token, pufETH, to its users representing their deposit, allowing them to use that token for trading or for other purposes.With our upcoming mainnet launch, we aim to significantly reduce the barriers for home validators to participate, while delivering the most advanced liquid restaking protocol, said Amir Amir Forouzani, CEO at Puffer Finance. "CORRECTION (April 16, 15:01 UTC): After publication of this story, Puffer clarified that Avon Ventures made an investment in this funding round, not Fidelity. Avon Ventures is affiliated with Fidelitys parent company, FMR LLC.