Qiro Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) company based in Singapore, has successfully raised $1.2 million in its pre-seed funding round. This round was led by Alliance, an early-stage web3 accelerator, and included participation from Druid Ventures, Escape Velocity (EV3), Trident Digital, and CMT Digital.
In addition to the pre-seed funding, Qiro Finance has also secured a 100,000 MATIC grant from Polygon as part of Polygon’s Village Build Ideas Program and a $50,000 development grant from the Aptos Foundation.
Qiro Finance, founded by Akshay Poshatwar and Nishikant Bahalkar, is focused on creating a decentralized credit protocol. This protocol aims to connect asset originators from emerging markets, specifically non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs), with global investors using blockchain and stablecoin technology. The company stated that the pre-seed funding would be strategically utilized for product development and ecosystem expansion, gearing up for the mainnet launch expected later this year.
The decentralized credit protocol being developed by Qiro Finance is designed to support various tokenized real-world asset (RWA)-backed credit applications. This will be accomplished by integrating asset originators, investors, and credit underwriters into a unified framework.
Nishikant Bahalkar, Chief Product Officer and Co-founder of Qiro, highlighted, “RWA credit on-chain isn’t a novel concept; however, Qiro is trailblazing open credit data and risk underwriting infrastructure for RWA credit protocols, addressing the adverse selection and credit defaults affecting on-chain credit transactions.”
Commenting on the investment, Chris Pizzo, Co-Founder & General Partner at Druid Ventures, stated, “Qiro has the potential to become the de facto credit data infrastructure, featuring a scalable and robust risk management layer at the protocol level.”
Akshay Poshatwar, CEO & Co-founder of Qiro, expressed his enthusiasm for the future, saying, “We are eagerly anticipating the journey ahead to revolutionize the private credit market. Our initial focus will revolve around supporting fintech asset originators within the Southeast Asian (SEA) markets, with an expansion roadmap encompassing other emerging markets. By harnessing the potential of DeFi and Blockchain technology, we remain resolute in establishing a more transparent, efficient, and accessible credit ecosystem.”
