Berachain reportedly raises $69 million in latest funding round: Bloomberg

Berachain, a bear-themed DeFi project run by pseudonymous co-founders, is expected to reach unicorn status after raising over $69 million in a fund round led by Brevan Howard Digital and Framework Ventures, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. 

Berachain’s projected value stands at $1.5 billion following the latest funding round through selling tokens, according to the Bloomberg report. 

The Cosmos-based, EVM-compatible Berachain focuses on DeFi trading, lending and borrowing services with its tri-token system. The platform consists of native gas token bera, honey stablecoin and “non-transferable” governance token BGT, the project said. With the mechanism, users can stake bera to earn BGT and receive rewards in honey for governance participation.

Last year, Berachain raised $42 million in a private token round led by Polychain Capital, with participants including Hack VC, Shima Capital, Robot Ventures and Goldentree Asset Management.

Berachain did not immediately respond to The Block’s request for further comments.

Upcoming mainnet

Berachain is preparing to launch its mainnet, expected in the second quarter of this year. It launched the public testnet named Artio in January.

Berachain’s network utilizes a unique consensus mechanism called “proof of liquidity,” which the team said increases security by increasing liquidity. While proof of stake networks typically have users choose between contributing to security by staking with a validator or providing on-chain liquidity on a DeFi platform, Berachain’s proof of liquidity only allows users to contribute toward network security by first providing liquidity to a set of DeFi primitives.