Elixir nears unicorn status following $8 million Series B funding round

Modular networking project Elixir has raised $8 million in a Series B funding round co-led by Sui blockchain developer Mysten Labs and Arthur Hayes’ family office, Maelstrom.

Hayes himself, Manifold, Amber Group, GSR and Flowdesk also participated in the round.

The new capital brings the project to near-unicorn status with a valuation of $800 million – an eightfold increase over Elixir’s valuation after October’s $7.5 million Series A round led by Hack VC. In addition to the $2.1 million seed round in January 2022, Elixir has raised more than $17 million in funding.

“Maelstrom is excited to support Elixir’s vision from its seed round over two years ago, through their latest Series B,” said Maelstrom Chief Investment Officer Arthur Hayes in a statement shared with The Block.

Elixir will use the funding to develop its decentralized network, which is designed to improve liquidity on order book exchanges. Elixir states that its order book model – which allows traders to trade directly with each other – is more efficient than the market maker’s dominant, automated, decentralized exchange system, which relies on mathematical models and liquidity pools to facilitate trading of token pairs.

“Elixir is proud to announce the close of our Series B fundraising ahead of a rapidly approaching network mainnet launch,” said Philip Forte, CEO of Elixir. “This increase will further enable Elixir’s ambition to serve as the modular liquidity protocol powering the Layer 1 and Layer 2 ecosystems, and the exchanges based on them.”

Elixir allows users to provide liquidity to pairs on order book exchanges to earn rewards, currently driving liquidity on exchanges like Vertex, Bluefin and RabbitX. The project also plans native integrations with dYdX, ApeX, Hyperliquid, Orderly Network and NFTPerp.

Additionally, Elixir on Tuesday announced its Apothecary initiative – a points-based system that will allow users to track their contributions to the network ahead of the mainnet launch, scheduled for August 2024.