Top 10 DeFi Startups Drawing Attention from TradFi Investors
Bru Finance
Chennai-based Bru, founded in 2021, tokenizes agricultural assets like warehouse receipts into DeFi bonds, offering 9-11% yields backed by 1,400 Indian warehouses. It has issued $700 million in tokenized bonds, bridging rural credit gaps.
TradFi win: Partnerships with NABARD and Punjab National Bank for compliant RWAs. PNB tokenized $100 million farm loans in February 2025.
Funding: $5 million seed from Blume Ventures in 2022. $8 million Series A from SBI Holdings in 2025, scaling to 20 states.
GIANTY
Hyderabad's GIANTY provides blockchain data APIs for DeFi analytics, powering dashboards for yield optimization with 99.99% uptime. Adopted by 200+ protocols, it processes 10 billion queries monthly.
TradFi lure: Integrations with Bloomberg terminals for on-chain insights, piloted by HDFC Securities in July 2025.
Funding: $3 million pre-seed from Antler India in 2023. $7 million Series Seed from Elevation Capital in April 2025.
