Ellipsis Labs, the team behind the Solana-based decentralized exchange Phoenix, has recently secured $21 million in funding from Haun Ventures to launch their new project, Atlas. This new blockchain is specifically designed for “verifiable finance” and aims to revolutionize the decentralized finance (DeFi) space.
Founded in 2022 by Eugene Chen and Jarry Xiao, who both have backgrounds in high-frequency trading, Ellipsis Labs is on a mission to create high-performance financial products that can compete with traditional finance while maintaining transparency, auditability, and censorship resistance. Their previous project, Phoenix, has already facilitated over $50 billion in trades since its launch in 2023.
The key insight behind Ellipsis Labs’ vision is to address the inefficiencies in DeFi, such as inefficient price discovery and high transaction costs, that hinder decentralized platforms from competing with traditional financial systems. With Atlas, they plan to leverage their experience from building Phoenix to create a network with ultra-low fees and high transaction throughput.
Atlas will initially launch as a layer-2 solution on Ethereum, allowing it to tap into both Ethereum and Solana’s liquidity pools. Some of the key features of Atlas include low-latency transaction processing, reliable oracle updates, and robust sequencing for non-custodial, on-chain price discovery.
Haun Ventures, the lead investor in this funding round, was founded in 2022 by Katie Haun, a former federal prosecutor, Coinbase executive, and Andreessen Horowitz partner. The $21 million funding round includes $20 million from Haun Ventures and an additional $1 million from other investors. This investment comes as a “fast-follow” to Ellipsis Labs’ $20 million Series A round led by Paradigm in April.
Overall, the launch of Atlas by Ellipsis Labs signals a significant development in the DeFi space, with the potential to disrupt traditional finance systems. By focusing on transparency, auditability, and low transaction costs, Ellipsis Labs is positioning itself as a key player in the evolution of decentralized finance.
CoinDesk, an award-winning media outlet covering the cryptocurrency industry, will continue to monitor and report on the progress of Atlas and other innovative projects in the blockchain space. Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting development in the world of decentralized finance.
