Sommelier Announces $3.5M in Series Seed Round to Build a New Coprocessor for Ethereum's World Computer

SAN FRANCISCO, March 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Sommelier, a decentralized finance (DeFi) blockchain protocol and Ethereum bridge that acts as a co-processor to the Ethereum world computer, today announced a $3.5M series seed investment led by Standard Crypto and with participation from Multicoin Capital, Alameda Ventures, Proper Cygni and Power Planet Holdings. The money will be used to fund the development of Sommelier's multichain protocol and its flagship decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, which are expected to launch in Q1 2021.

Sommelier consists of the Cosmos Stargate SDK, its Tendermint-based consensus layer and a decentralized, bi-directional Ethereum bridge, managed by a global network of validators. Liquidity Providers (LPs) will be able to use Sommelier to author and execute complex, automated financial transactions, such as portfolio rebalancing, limit orders, as well as a host of other features that token holders have come to expect from centralized finance (CeFi), but that are not currently available in DeFi.

"Sommelier's protocol unlocks the ability to augment Ethereum transaction computation and execution as a co-processor works to help the main CPU in a computer. Sommelier programmatically routes DeFi liquidity around the entire Ethereum network in ways that massively improve the experience for developers and liquidity providers. With Sommelier, LPs can detect and automatically significantly reduce the risk of impermanent loss and more effectively capture returns across any Ethereum DeFi exchange or application. Without Sommelier, LPs are simply unable to monitor and execute effectively in such a massive surface area" said Zaki Marian, co-founder, Sommelier. "While Sommelier was designed and future-proofed as a multichain ready at mainnet, I am particularly excited about Ethereum's DeFi ecosystem and plan to bring our platform to market here first."

With over $39 Billion now locked in decentralized finance applications, a robust ecosystem of  Automated Market Makers (AMM), decentralized exchanges, and lending markets has emerged. Uniswap, a decentralized trading protocol, alone boasts over $50 Billion in cumulative trading volume and over 60,000 unique Liquidity Providers. As trading volume has increased and venues have fragmented and creating sound, risk-adjusted returns has become far more challenging. Liquidity Providers need more computational power and speed to effectively manage their positions across exchanges, farms, and insurance products. The Sommelier protocol provides those tools to make it possible to scale the impossible task of paying attention and acting in a timely manner to the entire market.

"Zaki is one of the most capable engineers and operators in all of crypto. It's no coincidence that he timed his second project after Cosmos with the cambrian explosion that's happening in DeFi," said Kyle Samani, Managing Partner, Multicoin Capital. "Sommelier helps liquidity providers scale their ability to analyze and execute real-time transactions against all possible Ethereum yield-stabilizing or yield-maximizing strategies, simultaneously reducing risk and growing returns."

"We are thrilled to partner with Sommelier to advance the state of the art in DeFi infrastructure. Sommelier lets Ethereum users perform sophisticated financial operations far beyond what's currently possible, yet in a way that is fully compatible with the existing ecosystem. Sommelier is an acknowledgement of Ethereum's importance in DeFi as well as the opportunity to augment its feature set. Zaki and the team he's assembled have a rare combination of world-class technical prowess, profound product insight, and valuable experience from leading multi-billion-dollar crypto-networks," said Alok Vasudev, Managing partner, Standard Crypto.

The team behind the Sommelier protocol are some of the leading engineering minds from the Cosmos and Ethereum blockchain ecosystems. Notably, Zaki Manian, a key developer of Cosmos, Tendermint and co-founder of Iqlusion is leading the project with Jack Zampolin, the former product lead at Cosmos AIB and Akash networks; Federico Kunze, Senior Software Engineer at Interchain, Core Engineer of the IBC Protocol and Cosmos SDK framework; Justin Kilpatrick, CTO of Althea and former Red Hat engineer; Jehan Tremback, and Deborah Simpier, also co-founders of Althea; Kevin Kennis, former API lead at Bitmex; and Tony Arcieri Cofounder of Iqlusion and well known cryptography engineer.

While still in alpha, Sommelier is launching its first DApp today on the Ethereum Blockchain that will allow users to identify and add liquidity to the best performing Uniswap pools and remove liquidity from risk of impermanent loss. The full protocol is expected to launch into general availity on mainnet in late Q1 2021.

To learn more about Sommelier, please visit https://sommelier.finance/ 

To follow the project on Github, please star the project https://github.com/PeggyJV/sommelier.

To participate in the community, please join the Telegram group https://t.me/getsomm.

About Sommelier

Sommelier is the most powerful coprocessor yet for DeFi traders and Liquidity Providers (LPs). It consists of the Cosmos Stargate SDK, its Tendermint-based consensus layer and a decentralized, bi-directional Ethereum bridge, managed by a global network of validators. Liquidity Providers will be able to use the Sommelier to author and execute complex, and automated financial transactions, such as portfolio rebalancing, limit orders, as well as a host of other features that token holders have come to expect from CeFi, but that are not currently available in DeFi.

Sommelier was founded in 2020 by Zaki Manian, a lead developer on the Cosmos protocol and Tendermint, and a prolific team of Ethereum and Cosmos developers. Sommelier is currently in testnet and actively seeking new contributors.

To join the community, please visit https://sommelier.finance/

About Standard Crypto

Standard Crypto is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm focused on crypto. We partner with entrepreneurs building the crypto-networks and companies that will revolutionize finance, the internet, and more.

To contact us, please visit https://standardcrypto.vc

About Multicoin Capital

Multicoin Capital is a thesis-driven investment firm that invests in cryptocurrencies, tokens, and blockchain companies reshaping trillion-dollar markets.

Blockchain technologies will create trillions of dollars of value over the next decade. But investing in tokens is fundamentally different than investing in companies. New tools, heuristics, and security measures are required to responsibly invest in this ecosystem.

We believe in making decisions based solely on first principles and deep understanding of technology. We rigorously research blockchain protocols, teams, and market opportunities to deliver venture capital economics with public market liquidity.

To learn more, please visit https://multicoin.capital.

SOURCE Sommelier

Related Links

https://sommelier.finance.com