Polychain Capital leads $16 million seed round for Bitcoin restaking protocol Lombard

The Bitcoin restaking platform Lombard raised $16 million in seed funding led by the venture firm Polychain Capital.

Additional participants in the fundraise include BabylonChain, Inc., dao5, Franklin Templeton, Foresight Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Mantle EcoFund and Nomad Capital, among others.

Lombard will use the financing to grow out the Bitcoin restaking ecosystem alongside Babylon, a Bitcoin staking protocol. Once a user stakes Bitcoin via Babylon, Lombard issues the liquid and yield-bearing representation of staked Bitcoin using the token LBTC to unlock liquidity.

Lombard intends to integrate LBTC across Ethereum DeFi protocols later in the year, according to a company release.

"Our investment in Lombard demonstrates our belief in its potential to add immense value to the Web3 ecosystem by unlocking Bitcoin’s latent potential. Our commitment to Lombard represents a deeper belief in the leverage Bitcoin can have in catalyzing growth across the whole Blockchain space," said Polychain Capital founder Olaf Carlson-Wee in a statement.

The crypto-focused venture firm Paradigm led a $70 million fundraise for Babylon on May 30, which saw participation from Polychain as well as Bullish Capital, Hashkey Capital and others.