Crypto exchange WOO X has raised $9 million in a financing round with participation from leading market makers, including Wintermute. The platform announced the new funds from market makers such as Wintermute, SeliniCapital, TimeResearch, Presto Labs, Pulsar, AlphaLab Capital, Efficient Frontier, Amber, and Riverside Hedge.
WOO X, which faced challenges last November due to issues with its liquidity provider Kronos Research, has taken significant steps to separate from Kronos and revamp its business model to enhance liquidity in spot and perpetual markets.
In November 2023, Kronos Research was targeted in an attack resulting in an estimated $25 million loss, halting all trading and causing issues for WOO X. The exchange is now implementing changes, including updating its fee structure, improving technology infrastructure to support multiple DMMs, introducing a market maker discount in USDT, and launching a DMM reward pool to incentivize liquidity provision on WOO X.
WOO X aims to launch a DMM program for spot markets in the first quarter of the year, with initiatives expected to help the exchange achieve a 100% custody rate by the second quarter. The funds raised are intended for global market expansion and regulatory license acquisitions, with a focus on balancing the interests of liquidity providers rather than capital increase.
Founder Jack Tan emphasized that the funding round was joined by investors committed to increasing liquidity on WOO X, with the primary goal of the funds being to balance the interests of liquidity providers, not just capital raising.