The latest funding round, which brings Portal’s capital raise so far to $42.5 million, will finance the development of the DEX and wallet

Portal, a fintech provider advancing financial self-sovereignty, announced on January 30 that it recently raised $34 million in seed funding. Key crypto venture companies and investors that took part in the funding round include Coinbase Ventures, Arrington Capital, OKX Ventures and Gate.io.

In a statement, Portal said the new funding has been raised at a time when the industry is dealing with security risks and fragmentation inherent in cross-chain bridges and exchange platforms. With nearly $2.5 billion stolen in the past two years alone, the fintech provider said the situation now requires a different approach, namely the atomic swap technology.

Portal intends to solve the problem of custodial risk once and for all using secure and transparent Layer 2 atomic swap technology. With the support of our investors, we look forward to introducing cross-chain infrastructure that finally enables users to execute trades quickly and safely, according to Chandra Duggirala, the co-founder and CEO of Portal.

The fintech provider revealed that it is trying to create a solution that enables peer-to-peer (P2P) swapping of bitcoin across different blockchains without intermediaries. Moreover, Portal’s infrastructure is expected to enable the swapping of bitcoin across exchanges without giving up custody, privacy, or security.

The latest funding round, which brings Portal’s capital raise so far to $42.5 million, will finance the development of the DEX and wallet. The fintech provider said it also plans to launch products previously reserved for large institutions and hedge funds.

In the meantime, Michael Arrington, the founder and partner at Arrington Capital, commended Portal for pioneering DeFi on the Bitcoin network. Arrington said that Portal’s approach will likely make bitcoin more accessible and secure for individuals.