SBF leads $50M funding spherical to convey DeFi to Maps.me's 140M customers

Main offline mapping utility Maps.me has performed a $50 million seed funding spherical to embed decentralized finance instruments onto its platform.

The funding spherical for “Maps.me 2.0” was led by Sam Bankman-Fried of Alameda Analysis and likewise featured participation from crypto enterprise heavyweights CMS Holdings and Genesis Capital.

Maps.me 2.0 will probably be a wide-ranging utility, that includes journey guides, lodge bookings and mapping companies, along with change options and a multicurrency crypto-asset pockets providing annual yields of as much as 8%.

Alex Grebnev, the co-founder of Maps.me 2.0, informed Cointelegraph that customers will be capable to “generate yield on their financial savings by instantly lending it out securely to debtors.”

“We additionally plan to offer our customers the flexibility to commerce a variety of property that aren’t restricted by geographical boundaries or transaction measurement.”

Maps.me claims to be the primary “mainstream app” to embrace DeFi, with the applying boasting a person base of greater than 140 million after eight years of operation. Round 60 million customers had been lively in 2020. Bankman-Fried mentioned:

“By embedding and democratizing entry to yield-earning finance to thousands and thousands of customers through an on a regular basis app, Maps.me has the potential to essentially propel DeFi mainstream adoption and convey a groundbreaking expertise to the lots.”

The announcement states the platform intends to “break down monetary silos decided by nationality or web value” via its DeFi integrations. Grebnev additional defined: 

“The trade is ready for a catalyst for the mass adoption of DeFi instruments and we’re excited to make this a actuality by leveraging our lively userbase as a way to bootstrap a retail group for a brand new progressive DeFi platform on Maps.me.”

“Our long-term imaginative and prescient is to create an embedded platform that mixes a broad vary of monetary companies that present a neater option to make investments, pay, and journey. We see the flexibility to bundle issues like international change, investing, bank card, and peer-to-peer cost companies — with low charges, no hidden prices, and powerful loyalty incentives,” he added.

Maps.me was launched in 2012 below its outdated title MapsWithMe and was acquired by Mail.ru for roughly $14 million in 2014. On Nov. 2, 2020, Daegu Restricted, a member of Grebnev’s Parity.com Group, bought the app for almost $20 million.

Grebnev informed Cointelegraph that Parity acquired Maps.me with the target of constructing “an ecosystem that built-in DeFi instruments with a platform that had a big person base.”