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The career of Varun Satyam, Co-founder and CEO, Davos Protocol began as a freelance graphic designer, but his entrepreneurial spirit took flight during his third year of college. “My talents and business insights led to my selection as one of the first five student startups under the Sunrise Startups program by the Andhra Pradesh government. I was incubated in startup village, and also being a founding member for Vizag startups I played a pivotal role for building student entrepreneurship in the state. This was recognized by PMO and I was invited for the Startup India initiative launch by Shri Narendra Modi out of 800 delegates globally in Vigyan Bhavan,” says Satyam, who co-founded Strip Finance and contributed significantly to Ankr, Bitfinex, and the Tether Foundation.
In his 4th year, his abilities were nationally acknowledged when he was selected for a minor in entrepreneurship by sv.co. “Out of 10,000 teams, mine was among the top seven, a significant milestone. It was then that I founded Advoge, an ad tech-based startup, becoming one of the first ten startups from India to exhibit at Web Summit Lisbon. My achievements were further highlighted when I won the Startup Junction TV show on the Tv5 news channel. I also became the first student entrepreneur from India to write to Richard Branson and received a reply that caught the attention of multiple local news outlet,” shares Satyam. After his global exposure at Web Summit, he shifted his focus to Blockchain technology. “I spent two months as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Darwin Labs before starting my own venture, Almora, a new-age crypto investment bank. Despite its initial success, it had to be closed down following the market crash in 2018. This setback led me to work with leading crypto companies.” But what led him to start the Davos Protocol?
“Amidst Defi boom and terra luna on the rise, I realized that stablecoins that are over collateralized cannot survive in any market conditions. It’s an instrument only for the bull market. And I spoke regarding this with my previous colleagues from Ankr. Its Defi lead Filipe then started working on the fundamental ideas which lead to development of Davos. We realized that we can give instruments that could help people save and multiply their capital with very minimal risk in any of the market conditions which can give sustainable yield.”
On what makes the concept stand out, Satyam says, “Right now we know that there are investment options any individual can gain only when they invest and lock their capital for example FD’s and RD’s that generate interest of ranges 5-7% but capital is locked and you cannot use it. We leveraged the proof of the stake mechanism of blockchains. Giving sustainable yields from the POS mechanism ranging from 9-14% depending on reward ratios of different blockchains. The product is completely decentralized and permissionless making it the world’s first permissionless and overcollateralized stable coin minting protocol which can generate sustainable yield.”
His startup has served more than 10k customers till date. Satyam says 2023 has been an amazing year. “Within the first week of soft launch we had hit 2 million dollars in locked volume. Since then we have had an average daily volume of 1.5 million.”
The company has attained breakeven and expects major volume with ethereum in 2024 as the market will turn into bull post halving. It is also looking to expand into multiple chains. “We had initially started with just a polygon chain, but now we have built it on ethereum, arbitrum etc.”
FACTSHEET-
No. of Cofounders: 3
No. of Employees: 18
Year of Inception: 2023
External Investors: Dao5, Symbolic Capital, Polygon Ventures, J10m Ventures, Jun Capital. Mapleblock