ParaFi Capital Backs Jupiter with $35M Strategic Investment

Jupiter said it has secured a $35 million strategic investment from ParaFi Capital, marking the first time the Solana-based onchain trading and liquidity aggregation protocol has taken outside capital after years of bootstrapped, profitable growth.

The transaction involved token purchases at market prices with no discount and an extended lockup period and was settled entirely in Jupiter’s JupUSD stablecoin, the companies said. Financial terms beyond the $35 million investment were not disclosed.

The investment comes as Jupiter has processed more than $1 trillion in trading volume over the past year and expanded beyond swap routing into perpetuals, lending and stablecoins, according to the company.

The deal also included warrants allowing ParaFi Capital to acquire additional tokens at higher prices, a structure the companies said was intended to reflect long-term alignment. 

The investment follows a recent expansion of Jupiter’s product offerings. In October, Jupiter rolled out a beta version of its onchain prediction market developed with Kalshi, followed in January by the launch of JupUSD, a Solana-native, dollar-pegged stablecoin built in partnership with Ethena Labs.

Jupiter’s native token (JUP) was up around 9% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.

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Decentralized protocols attract VC attention

In 2025 and early 2026, venture firms have continued to deploy capital into decentralized protocols through token-based deals.

In October, a16z Crypto invested $50 million in Jito, a Solana-based liquid staking protocol, through a token-based deal that granted the firm an undisclosed allocation of Jito’s native tokens at a discount.

In January, Babylon, a decentralized protocol focused on Bitcoin-native staking and lending, raised $15 million from a16z Crypto through the sale of its BABY token, with the firm saying the funding would support development of the protocol’s onchain infrastructure.

Beyond decentralized finance, venture investors have also supported other categories of decentralized protocols in recent months.

In September, decentralized science platform Bio Protocol raised $6.9 million from investors including Maelstrom Fund and Animoca Brands to support the development of its AI-native, blockchain-based framework for biomedical research.

Last year, Humanity Protocol, a decentralized identity platform, raised $20 million from Pantera Capital and Jump Crypto at a reported $1.1 billion valuation to develop its Proof of Humanity onchain identity system based on biometric data.

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