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§ Private Profile · London, United Kingdom
Rho Labs is a technology company.
Rho Labs operates Rho Protocol, a decentralized exchange dedicated to crypto-native interest rate derivatives. The platform facilitates efficient markets for funding rates, lending and borrowing rates, and staking rewards, enabling users to strategically hedge against or capitalize on fluctuations within these digital asset interest rate landscapes. Its sophisticated infrastructure provides tools for advanced trading strategies in a nascent but growing market segment.
The company was established in late 2022 by Alex Ryvkin, whose background includes serving as Chief Product Officer at Copper.co, a prominent institutional crypto custody provider. Ryvkin’s insight centered on the critical need for a professional-grade, on-chain rates market to bring structured financial tools seen in traditional markets to the burgeoning cryptocurrency space.
Rho Protocol targets sophisticated traders, decentralized finance participants, and institutional investors seeking to manage risk and generate yield in the crypto ecosystem. The company envisions unlocking a vast new array of trading opportunities by building the foundational infrastructure for crypto interest rate derivatives, mirroring the scale and depth of the multi-trillion-dollar traditional finance interest rate markets.
Rho Labs has raised $6.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Rho Labs has raised $6.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Rho Labs is a fintech startup building Rho Protocol, the world's first crypto-native interest rate derivatives exchange, enabling on-chain trading of rates like perpetual funding, staking, and lending for crypto market participants.[1][2][4][6] It serves cryptocurrency traders, liquidity providers, validators, and institutional clients by solving risk management challenges in volatile crypto rates, turning them into liquid, tradable assets for hedging, speculation, and yield strategies—facilitating over $7 billion in notional volume since its beta launch in June 2024.[2][4] The company has raised $6.2 million total ($2.2M pre-seed in 2024, $4M seed in February 2025), backed by investors like CoinFund, Speedinvest, Flow Traders, and Daedalus, positioning it for rapid product expansion amid rising institutional crypto adoption.[1][2][3]
Rho Labs was founded in late 2022 by Alex Ryvkin, a London Business School MBA 2014 alumnus and former Chief Product Officer at Copper, a traditional finance and Web3 infrastructure firm.[3][4] Ryvkin, drawing from his TradFi experience, identified a gap in crypto for institutional-grade interest rate derivatives—markets worth over $500 trillion in traditional finance but underdeveloped on-chain, especially post-FTX collapse when crypto confidence hit lows.[2][3] Launching at the nadir of the VC cycle amid investor pullbacks, early traction came via a $2.2M pre-seed round led by Speedinvest in April 2024, followed by beta rollout in June 2024 and a $4M seed in February 2025 led by CoinFund, overcoming fundraising hurdles by targeting aligned investors beyond mere capital.[1][2][3]
Rho Labs rides the on-chain finance trend, tokenizing TradFi's largest asset class (interest rates, $500T+ open interest) for crypto, amid regulatory normalization and institutional inflows into DeFi.[2][4] Timing aligns with post-2024 crypto recovery, perpetuals dominance, and staking growth, where volatile rates hinder efficiency—Rho unlocks risk management like IRS swaps, closing TradFi-crypto gaps for structured products and speculation.[2][4] It influences the ecosystem by stabilizing validator revenues, boosting liquidity in rates (key for perps funding), and drawing TradFi players onchain, accelerating Web3's maturation into a full financial primitive stack.[4]
Rho Labs is primed to dominate crypto rates trading with upcoming products (rolling out in 3-6 months post-2025 seed), expanding to more cryptonative rates and potentially TradFi integration as adoption surges.[2][3] Trends like institutional DeFi entry, Arbitrum scaling, and fixed-income normalization will fuel growth, evolving Rho from niche venue to infrastructure layer for on-chain finance. As the preeminent liquidity hub, it could redefine crypto risk tools, much like its origins bridged TradFi expertise to untapped on-chain potential.[2][4]
Rho Labs has raised $6.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $4.0M Seed in February 2025.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 1, 2025 | $4M Seed | CoinFund | Rick Wagoner | Announced |
| Nov 1, 2023 | $2M Seed | — | AirAngels, Sequoia Capital, Speedinvest, Upfront Ventures, Witz Ventures, Alexandre Prot, Alexandros Bottenbruch, Didier Valet, Eden Chen, Eric Demuth, Harsh Sinha, James Beshara, Philippe Teixeira DA Mota, Raphael Vullierme, Steve Anavi | Announced |
Rho Labs has raised $6.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Rho Labs's investors include CoinFund, Rick Wagoner, AirAngels, Sequoia Capital, Speedinvest, Upfront Ventures, Witz Ventures, Alexandre Prot, Alexandros Bottenbruch, Didier Valet, Eden Chen, Eric Demuth.