Kyo Finance Secures Strategic Partnership And Investment From Startale Ventures To Strengthen Multi-Chain DeFi Infrastructure

In Brief

New investment from Startale Ventures accelerates Kyo’s mission to unify fragmented liquidity across Superchain ecosystems, delivering scalable, regulated onchain market access amid rising institutional demand.

Full-stack, vote-escrowed decentralized exchange (veDEX) infrastructure, Kyo Finance announced a strategic investment and an ecosystem partnership with Startale Ventures, part of Startale Group, a prominent entity shaping the future of the Soneium and Optimism Superchain ecosystems. This collaboration further solidifies Kyo’s position as a leading liquidity hub on Soneium, having achieved a peak total value locked (TVL) of over $55 million and accumulated more than $530 million in trading volume since its launch on January 14th, coinciding with the debut of the Soneium Mainnet.

Startale Ventures focuses on supporting high-potential projects that are building the next generation of decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure on Soneium. After evaluating numerous applicants, Kyo Finance was selected as the winner of the Soneium Spark Incubation Program, earning both financial support and alignment with Soneium’s long-term growth strategy.

In addition to the financial investment, Startale Ventures offers Kyo Finance access to its comprehensive ecosystem, including a network of institutional partners, extensive technical guidance, and integration opportunities across platforms such as Soneium and Superchain.

“We are excited to support and join forces with such an innovative project as Kyo Finance, which has rightfully become the winner of the Soneium Spark program,” said Sota Watanabe, CEO of Startale Group, in a written statement. “Together, we will tackle some of the most pressing issues in today’s DeFi sector, starting with uniting fractured liquidity and enabling a truly multi-chain ecosystem,” he added.

Startale Ventures has identified Kyo Finance as a key investment, integral to its broader strategy of creating a leading liquidity infrastructure within emerging blockchain ecosystems. Operating as the venture arm of Startale Group, Startale Ventures concentrates on early-stage investments in protocols that have the potential to become foundational elements for the next generation of DeFi.

“With over 50 chains launching within the Superchain, Kyo addresses critical liquidity fragmentation through a fully vertically integrated stack,” said Kai, CEO of Kyo Finance, in a written statement.

Kyo Finance To Lead DeFi Evolution Amid US Crypto Deregulation

As the US continues to move forward with cryptocurrency deregulation through major initiatives such as the Clarity Act and the SEC’s recently unveiled “Project Crypto,” institutional interest in compliant and composable DeFi is reaching a pivotal turning point.

Kyo Finance is strategically positioned at the forefront of this transition. With strong integration within the Soneium and Optimism Superchain ecosystems, Kyo provides a comprehensive full-stack veDEX infrastructure designed to consolidate fragmented liquidity across multiple blockchains. Supported by Startale Ventures and the Soneium Spark Fund, Kyo offers high-quality execution, governance tools, and access to multi-chain liquidity, at a time when institutions are increasingly looking for scalable ways to enter regulated on-chain markets.

Kyo intends to further advance its goal of building the first fully vertically integrated liquidity infrastructure for the Superchain, leveraging the strategic investment and partnership from Startale Ventures. As the DeFi landscape undergoes rapid changes — with more than half of all trading volumes now routed through aggregators or integrated swap interfaces — standalone decentralized exchanges (DEXs) without advanced solver engines are losing value to third-party arbitrageurs, and those lacking competitive user interfaces are at risk of losing order flow altogether.

Looking ahead, Kyo Finance plans to continue utilizing Startale’s Account Abstraction infrastructure and Startale Nodes to enable gasless transactions, showcasing the practical value and cross-platform interoperability of Startale’s technology stack across its portfolio companies.

With Startale Ventures leading the strategic investment and the Soneium Spark Fund as an additional supporting investor, Kyo Finance is well-positioned to unify liquidity across Superchain networks, optimize capital flows, and establish a new standard for DeFi infrastructure in a multi-chain future.