Crypto app Alice has raised $2 million in seed funding in its effort to make Terra blockchain decentralized finance (DeFi) “accessible” to U.S. users.
Led by Arrington Capital, Alice’s round will fund the development of a mobile app with payments and variable-rate deposit features, according to CEO Echul Shin. The app will prioritize ease-of-use as a potential DeFi gateway for newcomers, he said.
Shin, who previously worked for Terra, hopes to emulate his former employer’s success at piling users onto the algorithmic stablecoin network. That protocol already boasts 2 million users in its native South Korea.
“We thought it was just inevitable to bring the DeFi ecosystem from Terra to the U.S. to provide better yield on deposits, as well as better settlement layers,” he said.
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Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon also joined the round alongside Mechanism Capital and Accomplice Blockchain, according to a press statement. Michael Arrington, the lead investor, said Alice’s young team is “doing a lot with just a little bit of money.”
“With DeFi, you’ve got these magical protocols out there that are just wonderful, but they take a little bit of technical skill to use,” Arrington said.
“If you can marry a really nice user-facing app that makes it less threatening and much easier to use, you could bring masses to these protocols that haven’t considered it yet.”
Alice is now taking beta volunteers for the mobile app. It plans to introduce the product to a limited audience in the third quarter.