Major crypto investment firm Pantera Capital has lead a seed funding round for crypto staking startup, Staked, the company announced in a blog post Jan. 31.

The startup, which targets institutional investors of proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies, announced that it raised $4.5 million in the investment round.

According to the post, in addition to Pantera Capital, major firms that participated in the round include Coinbase Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Winklevoss Capital, Global Brain, Fabric Ventures and Blocktree Capital.

Furthermore, the company also reported that Pantera Capital partner Paul Veradittakit is set to join Staked’s board of directors. Pantera Capital reportedly first contacted the company as a potential customer but ended up investing in it as well, the post notes. Veradittakit is quoted as saying:

“Pantera invests in many leading proof-of-stake projects, so we knew we needed a staking solution. [...] We liked Staked because of the experienced team, focus on institutions, and broader vision around helping investors earn yield on their cryptocurrency.”

Staking is a term describing the way users participate in the maintenance of a proof-of-stake blockchain. It involves depositing or staking an amount of cryptocurrency in order to receive a block reward.

According to the startup’s founder and CEO, Tim Ogilvie, the firm “help[s] institutional investors in digital currencies earn their network staking rewards[.]”

Staked currently supports staking for cryptocurrencies Tezos (XTZ), Dash (DASH), Decred (DCR), Livepeer (LPT), Factom (FCT) and Eos (EOS).

As Cointelegraph reported in October last year, Pantera Capital’s co-CIO Joey Krug predicted that cryptocurrency markets could increase ten times over from 2020.

In November 2018, Coinbase Ventures also participated in a funding round for security token startup Securitize, alongside Blockchain Capital.