Amulet, a decentralized finance (DeFi) insurance protocol for Rust language-based ecosystems, has successfully raised $6 million in its first funding round.
The seed round was led by gumi Cryptos Capital and joined by Republic Capital, Solana Ventures, DeFiance Capital, Animoca Brands, United Overseas Bank, Signum Capital, Mirana Ventures, NGC Ventures, LongHash Ventures, SevenX Ventures, CMT Digital, Matrixport Ventures, a41 Ventures, Solar Eco Fund, Daedalus, Cobo Wallet and Re7 Capital, and a few ecosystem partners such as the Serum and Acala networks.
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In the last year, the total value locked (TVL) of Solana (SOL) has been growing faster than Ether (ETH), but there is currently no native insurance protocol.
Amulet utilizes Solana’s proof-of-stake network to provide stable returns and provide insurance services with its unique Protocol Controlled Underwriting and Future Yield Backed Claim mechanism, which minimizes risk for underwriting capital providers.
In 2021, there was more than $10 billion lost due to various hacks and frauds in the crypto space, including $2.6 billion in exploits on DeFi protocols, according to an Immunefi report. A lack of sustainable design and coverage gaps has led to insurance being persistently undervalued in the DeFi space, and as a result, very little of that lost money has been recovered. This is also a concern in the wider world for the metaverse, GameFi and the broader Web3 space.
The market needs better insurance solutions, and until the launch of Amulet, that hasn’t been available for DeFi investors. Amulet will be the first Rust-based DeFi insurance protocol, initially deployed on the Solana network, built to address this high market demand.
Amulet will adopt a multichain strategy and deploy it to other non-Ethereum Virtual Machine-based ecosystems along the road.
“Lately, we’ve seen some epic hacks in cross-chain bridges,” said Miko Matsumura, managing partner of gumi Cryptos Capital. “We appreciate the novel design of Protocol Controlled Underwriting and feel that this mechanism will become a standard way to mitigate some of the substantial risks in DeFi.”
Amulet is led by Rupert Barksfield, a serial entrepreneur who’s worked in crypto since 2016 and has more than 15 years of experience in the technology sector.
Barksfield said, “I am extremely excited to be leading the launch of Amulet. We’ve built an incredible team and aim to build a powerhouse community driving adoption of Web3 while protecting [user] risk. There is an enormous TVL — $35 billion-plus — for Rust-based ecosystems, and this is a market that we can not only penetrate but also lead the way for protecting more users from potential hacks, fraud and other risks. After analyzing the future projections deeply, the next five years are going to be extremely important for our own growth, and that is why we had to act today to announce Amulet, [which] is built, with openness, scalability and sustainability at the forefront of our minds.”
Amulet wants to be the first protocol to offer GameFi and nonfungible token (NFT) asset insurance, metaverse life and property insurance and other protections for the rising Web3 world.
