Neutrl, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol and the provider of the synthetic dollar NUSD, has raised $5 million in a seed round

The company plans to use the capital to advance its strategy for bringing hedge fund-style crypto yield strategies to investors using a single token.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Neutrl, the provider of the synthetic dollar NUSD, has raised $5 million in a seed round.

Digital asset private marketplace STIX and venture firm Accomplice led the round. Among the participants were Amber Group, SCB Limited, Figment Capital and Nascent.

Ethena founder Guy Young and derivatives trader Joshua Lim of Arbelos Markets were among several backers who joined as angel investors.

The company plans to use the capital to advance its strategy for bringing hedge fund-style crypto yield strategies to investors using a single token. Its NUSD token offers scalable “institutional-grade” yields by leveraging OTC discounts and delta-neutral hedging.

The company's strategy involves buying locked altcoins at a discount in private markets and hedging exposure with perpetual futures. The NUSD token allows holders to benefit from this strategy without having to buy the tokens and hedge the exposure themselves.

The protocol is targeting to grow to $2 billion in assets in two years as it estimates over $10 billion worth of altcoins set to unlock in the next few years, according to CoinDesk report.

The company also has a staking version of the NUSD token, sNUSD, in the pipeline, which it says acts as a high-yield bearing account.

Traders can deposit stablecoins like USDC, USDT or USDe to receive NUSD 1:1. To earn yield, they stake NUSD and mint sNUSD to receive OTC and delta-neutral trading yields, while maintaining transferability and composability, a statement on Neutrl's website reads. The protocol also offers the opportunity to increase yield by locking sNUSD for a limited time period.