Arab rooted MRHB DeFi, decentralized finance ecosystem platform focused on ethical, sustainable and halal crypto opportunities, has raised a total of USD 5.5 million through a series of private and public funding rounds. This culminated in an initial DEX offering (IDO) that was oversubscribed on the DODO and ZeeDO launchpads.
Prior to its IDO, the startup gave the community direct access through two public sales on its official website, which saw tremendous support from its community of over 50,000 members.
“Our funding rounds have surpassed our expectations and prove beyond doubt the huge demand for ethics in the cryptoverse,” said MRHB DeFi CEO Naquib Mohammed. “We want to take the opportunity to express our heartfelt appreciation for our valued partners and loyal supporters, without whom we would not have made it this far. These are just the first steps of our ambitious multi-year journey that we have begun, together with our community, to ensure that everyone can participate in building an ecosystem where trust and values matter – hence giving access to the growing opportunities of the crypto-economy.”
The ethical startup is also backed by investors and partners which include Polygon Technology, Sheesha Finance, Australian Gulf Capital, Mozaic, NewTribe Capital, Blockchain Australia, Contango Digital Assets, Masary Capital, ZKSync, Acreditus Partners, EMGS Group, Sinofy Group, Sukhavati Protocol and MKD Capital amongst others.
Naquib assembled a team that included not just developers but reputable industry professionals and Shariah experts, all of whom shared his vision of creating an ethical DeFi ecosystem that reflects community values and beliefs. It would be the first to fill a major gap in the crypto space and address the needs of communities that number more than a billion, who have all thus far been excluded due to ethics, faith, fear and complexity.
While the DeFi offerings were aimed at adhering to ethical investment and financing principles rooted in Islamic Finance (primarily the prohibition on interest-based lending and income, and sectors deemed unethical or exploitative like gambling, pornography etc), MRHB would also be focused on removing technological complexity. Thus the overall objective was to build a more empowering and ethical community-focused platform that would also cater to those new to crypto while addressing the negative perception created by extensive instances of fraud, risk and opacity in the crypto space.
The Islamic Finance sector is the first target and is the largest and most active faith-based market. It is currently sized at around USD 3 trillion – attracting even a small portion of Islamic liquidity into DeFi will represent a major boost to the total value of the DeFi sector worldwide.
Community Focused and Community Supported
Approximately 85% of the funds raised came from the MRHB global community which spans from Canada to Australia – all of whom are looking for an ethical and halal entry into the cryptoverse. The inclusive startup is aptly named, with MRHB being short for “Marhaba”, which means “welcome” in Arabic, as the project ushers in entire crypto newbie communities.
The platform’s $MRHB token is now available for trades on PancakeSwap, one of the leading decentralized exchanges on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) network and remains above the launch price in spite of overall bearish markets.
MRHB DeFi is already moving forward with their production roadmap, having recently launched its Souq NFT Marketplace, the first NFT marketplace guaranteed to contain halal-only content. The launch of Sahal Wallet, a non-custodial mobile wallet featuring filtering technology that will allow for frictionless access to halal tokens, is slated for the middle of next month.
The Liquidity Harvester, MRHB’s passive and stable crypto income product, will be launching in Q2 and the project is currently in advanced discussions with pioneering regulated institutional partners to offer halal crypto-wealth products.