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Saddle Finance is a decentralized automated market maker (AMM) on the Ethereum blockchain, engineered for efficient exchange of pegged-value crypto assets, like stablecoins or wrapped Bitcoin, with minimal price impact. It leverages a specialized StableSwap algorithm, enabling capital-efficient trading pools optimized for assets maintaining a stable price relationship.
The protocol launched in 2020, focusing on enhancing liquidity for pegged assets within the DeFi ecosystem. It was conceived from the insight that existing AMMs were suboptimal for such assets, leading to inefficiencies. The project aimed to provide specialized infrastructure for stablecoin and similar asset trading.
Saddle Finance serves users conducting large-volume swaps of stablecoins and other pegged crypto assets, offering a more capital-efficient alternative to general-purpose decentralized exchanges. Its mission was to maximize these assets' potential via a robust trading environment. However, the company is currently winding down operations and distributing its treasury to investors.
Saddle Finance has raised $12.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Saddle Finance has raised $12.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Saddle Finance has raised $12.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Saddle Finance's investors include BoxGroup, Curie.Bio, Founders Fund, Hack VC, IA Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Multicoin Capital, North Island Ventures, Operator Partners, Precursor Ventures, Tribe Capital, Balaji Srinivasan.
Saddle Finance is a decentralized automated market maker (AMM) protocol on Ethereum, designed for efficient trading of pegged-value crypto assets like stablecoins with minimal slippage. It provides low-slippage swaps for traders and high-yield liquidity pools for providers (LPs), using a StableSwap algorithm that hybridizes constant product and constant sum models to maintain liquidity.[1][2][3] Saddle serves DeFi traders, liquidity providers, and protocols seeking composable AMM tools, solving the problem of high slippage in stablecoin swaps common in traditional AMMs like Uniswap.[1][3] Founded in 2020, it raised $7.5M in 2021 from Polychain Capital and Electric Capital to expand multi-chain capabilities, but by the time of available records, the Saddle DAO voted via SIP-54 to wind down operations, pausing all pools and advising users to withdraw funds.[1][2]
Saddle Finance was founded in 2020 by DeFi natives with prior engineering experience at Web2 giants like Uber, Amazon, and Square.[1] Sunil Srivatsa, the founder, led the project with a vision to create open-source DeFi primitives as "financial Lego blocks" for collaboration across protocols.[1][2] The idea emerged from the need for better AMMs tailored to pegged assets, building on Curve's StableSwap formula to enable cheaper, efficient swaps.[1][3] Early traction included audits by Certik, Quantstamp, and OpenZeppelin for security, and a $7.5M funding round in November 2021 from Polychain and Electric Capital, which fueled team expansion and multi-chain ambitions.[1][2][3] However, the protocol later shut down per DAO decision in SIP-54, marking the end of active operations.[2]
Saddle rode the 2020-2021 DeFi boom, addressing slippage pain points in stablecoin trading amid exploding TVL in protocols like Curve.[1][3][7] Its timing capitalized on Ethereum's growth and the shift toward specialized AMMs for efficient capital use in a market where general-purpose DEXs wasted liquidity on pegged swaps.[1][7] Market forces like rising stablecoin adoption (e.g., USDC, DAI) and multi-chain fragmentation favored its low-slippage model and expansion plans.[1] By open-sourcing and collaborating, Saddle influenced the ecosystem as a primitive for other DeFi builders, though its wind-down highlights risks like DAO governance decisions and competition from iterated rivals.[2]
Saddle's arc—from innovative AMM challenger to DAO-wound protocol—exemplifies DeFi's high-stakes evolution, where technical edge meets governance volatility.[2] With pools paused and multisig dissolved, no active revival appears likely absent new community efforts.[2] Future trends like layer-2 scaling and cross-chain stablecoin dominance could inspire forks or integrations of its StableSwap code, but Saddle itself ties back to its core promise: efficient primitives that briefly advanced DeFi trading before market dynamics shifted.[1][3]
Saddle Finance has raised $12.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $8.0M Series A in November 2021.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 1, 2021 | $8.0M Series A | BoxGroup, Curie.Bio, Founders Fund, Hack VC, IA Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Multicoin Capital, North Island Ventures, Operator Partners, Precursor Ventures, Tribe Capital, Balaji Srinivasan, Imran Khan, Jess Sloss, Joel Spolsky, Regan Bozman, Tony Sheng | |
| Jan 1, 2021 | $4.0M Seed | 100X.VC, Alt Capital, Angel Invest, AngelList, Archetype, Balderton Capital, B Capital Group, BlockTower Capital, C2 Investment, Earl Grey Capital, Electric Capital, Founders Fund, Hack VC, Khosla Ventures, MKT1 Capital, Plaid, Polychain Capital, Ribbit Capital, Scalar Capital, Susa Ventures, Adam Wiggins, Alex Pack, Charlie Songhurst, Chase Gilbert, Derrick Li, Jeremy Yap, Jutta Steiner, Luis Cuende, Matt Macinnis, Parker Conrad, Sung ho Choi, Trent McConaghy |