Binance Labs, the venture capital arm of Binance, unveiled its investment in Berachain liquid staking protocol Infrared. The sum invested, however, has not been disclosed.

Chalking out how the funds raised will be used, the official post noted,

With this funding, Infrared plans to strengthen the backbone of the Berachain network to ensure enhanced security, efficiency, and reliability and refine its liquid staking solutions, including “iBGT” and “iBERA.”

This marks Binance’s maiden investment into the Berachain ecosystem. It injected the funds into the project via a strategic round as a sole investor.

Opining on the latest development, Raito, the founder of Infrared asserted that this investment validates the protocol’s vision. He reiterated that the latest fund influx will help the Infrared team build infrastructure and tools that will help Berachain grow.

Berachain, on its part, rolled out its V2 upgrade on its public testnet earlier this month. The upgrade ushered in a series of technical architectural changes, with the main one focussing on drifting away from Polaris - a blockchain framework for EVM integration.

Powered by the Proof of Liquidity [PoL] consensus mechanism, the Layer 1 blockchain opened its testnet for the first time to the public in January this year. The V2 upgrade brought Berachain one step closer to its mainnet launch.

Infrared is still in its development phase. It will go live on Berachain’s V2 testnet in the foreseeable future. The protocol is also looking to launch its in-house token IRED going forward.

Earlier in January, Infrared raised $2.5 million via its seed round. Synergis led the round and others including NGC Ventures, Tribe Capital, CitizenX, Shima Capital, Dao5, Decima, Oak Grove Ventures, DoraHacks, and Tenzor Capital participated.