Lighter Secures $68M at $1.5B Valuation as Venture Capital Floods Back Into Perp DEX Infrastructure

zk-Rollup Perpetual Exchange Targets Institutional Liquidity After Rapid $279B Monthly Trading Surge

TL;DR

• Lighter raised $68 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, backed by Founders Fund, Ribbit Capital, Haun Ventures, and Robinhood.
• The decentralized perpetuals platform recorded $279.5 billion in 30-day trading volume and $1.15 billion in TVL.
• Funding will expand institutional liquidity, multi-chain access, and zk-rollup infrastructure amid rising Perp DEX competition.

Lighter, a decentralized perpetual futures trading platform built with zero-knowledge rollup technology, has raised $68 million in a new funding round that places its valuation at $1.5 billion. The round drew heavyweight participation from Founders Fund, Ribbit Capital, Haun Ventures, and Robinhood, signaling renewed investor confidence in the decentralized derivatives infrastructure segment. The capital injection arrives as venture capital flows return to the on-chain derivatives space, which has seen record trading activity and growing competition from rival Perp DEX protocols.

The platform operates as an application-specific zk-rollup integrated into the Ethereum ecosystem, focusing on verifiable order-book trading. Its core infrastructure features a transparent and non-custodial matching engine designed to bridge institutional trading efficiency with DeFi-level accessibility. While retail users reportedly benefit from zero-fee trading, Lighter plans to direct this funding toward expanding liquidity depth, scaling its infrastructure across multiple chains, and introducing monetization tools tailored to institutional clients. Founder statements describe the project’s ambition as building a “fair and transparent infrastructure layer for all financial interactions,” reflecting its long-term vision to standardize decentralized derivatives trading.

Lighter’s performance metrics suggest its aggressive valuation is not without traction. The platform reportedly recorded $279.5 billion in perpetual trading volume over the past 30 days and maintains $1.15 billion in total value locked. Earlier data placed its TVL at $320 million, ranking it among the largest decentralized contract exchanges and overtaking established players such as dYdX in specific metrics. Despite this growth, the protocol remains in a limited-access testing phase, indicating that its full launch could still unlock significant additional participation and liquidity.

The company’s evolution traces back to its founder’s previous success with the AI-driven networking platform Lunchclub, which raised around $30 million before transitioning toward decentralized finance. Lighter’s blend of AI-informed matching logic and zero-knowledge infrastructure aims to deliver institutional-grade performance without compromising transparency. The recent raise reportedly included both equity and token warrants, suggesting investors will hold rights to future native tokens tied to protocol governance or liquidity incentives.

Industry analysts view Lighter’s funding as part of a broader revival of capital inflows into decentralized derivative exchanges, a sector once overshadowed by spot DEXs. The move follows months of record activity in the Perp DEX market, with aggregate sector volumes surpassing $1.2 trillion in October amid incentive-driven liquidity and widespread liquidations. Lighter, among the newer entrants, faced its first stress test during that same period when a $19 billion liquidation wave hit perpetual swap platforms, exposing the need for more resilient matching systems and liquidity controls across the sector.

The $1.5 billion valuation underscores investor optimism that the platform’s zk-rollup foundation and transparent order book could form the next institutional on-ramp to decentralized trading. However, the valuation also raises execution risks, as the protocol will need to sustain high throughput, expand liquidity partnerships, and navigate volatility typical of leveraged derivatives. For now, the raise positions Lighter among the leading Perp DEX contenders by both market volume and funding scale—cementing its place in the rapidly evolving architecture of decentralized finance’s derivatives frontier.

This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.