Spearheaded by Fred Ehrsam, the co-founder of Coinbase, Paradigm led Argent’s $12 million Series A funding, together with Index Ventures and Robert Leshner, the founder of Compound.

Ever since it was founded back in December 2017, Argent raised $16 million in funding. Leshner said its investment opportunity attracted him because the London-based wallet startup offers both a good user experience and an effective smart contract architecture.

Itamar Lesuisse, the CEO of Argent, said more than 3,000 accounts were used actively in the Argent’s 6-month closed beta period and that over 1,000 are on the waiting list for the April’s public launch. Half of these users use DeFi products such as interest-bearing deposits and loans. When it comes to why Paradigm has been attracted to Argent, partner Matt Huang says that it’s because this company’s mobile wallet has a great balance between security and usability.

Explaining how his product is as simple to use as Venmo, Lesuisse said he has plans to expand the DeFi product options in 2020. The Argent mobile wallet is indeed very simple to use, as it allows users to buy crypto by using their Apple Pay accounts and debit cards, through MoonPay and Wyre. Besides, it has a unique identifier that’s associated with the phone on which it’s being used, not to mention a backup recovery system that sends data to either Argent or someone close to the user.

For now, Argent doesn’t focus on monetization, as it only receives small fees from DeFi providers such as the Kyber Network. According to Lesuisse, a user holds an average of $2,000 in his or her Argent wallet. Making comments about the bugs associated with smart contracts and Argent, Huang said that:

“It’s an easy way for consumers to interact with DeFi. Argent can’t prevent some of the risks that might occur in the DeFi space overall. As a user, you’re still exposed to and should be comfortable with the actions you take.”

In other words, the risks exist, whether it’s Argent or another wallet provider running the DeFi.

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