Crypto Startup Kiln Raises $17.6m to Expand Staking

Kiln wants to build a more institutionalized staking ecosystem.

Kiln, an Ethereum staking-as-a-service startup, announced the closure of its Series A funding round on Monday, raising €17 million ($17.6 million). It will utilize the proceeds to broaden the current staking product range and infrastructure.

The newest financing round was led by Illuminate Financial with the participation of many cryptos investing entities, including Kraken Ventures, ConsenSys, XBTO and current investors, including 3KVC, SV Angel or Blue Yard Capital.

According to the press release, Kiln is currently holding over $500 million of assets staked under management. The company predicts that the staking demand will dynamically spread in the ecosystem after the Ethereum blockchain moves to a Proof of Stake (PoS).

At this time, only 12.5% of the available ETH supply is staked, whereas the figure for other PoS assets reaches 50-80%. If half of the available Ethereum tokens are staked, the value of this market will exceed $70 billion. Since the 'Merge', Ethereum offers an attractive annualized return of 6-7%.