Index Cooperative, the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) behind tokens like DeFi Pulse Index (DPI) and others, has closed a $7.7 million funding round led by Galaxy Digital and 1kx. 

The group develops and oversees a collection of structured decentralized finance (DeFi) products that both retail and institutional investors can buy to gain exposure to various corners of the crypto market.

"Index is the market leader for on-chain ETF-like products and enables any DeFi user to get complex exposure that would be difficult to manually replicate,” Galaxy Digital’s Leland Lee told CoinDesk. “For example, Index users can buy a token that represents 2x ETH exposure instead of managing a margin long position.”

DeFi, in its complexity and market reach, is booming, and investor interest may be spilling over into the world of DAOs.

In the case of Index Cooperative, the DAO is a collection of individual DeFi experts, business development people and marketers, said Lemonade Alpha, one of the project’s pseudonymous leaders. Each person or entity – Set Labs, DeFi Pulse and the investors who joined the latest round – holds a various-sized share of governance power.

Since launching in October, the Index Cooperative has reached $150 million in assets under management, and earlier this month, it passed $1 million in cumulative revenue, Lemonade Alpha said.

Index says the funding will be used to hire more engineers, expand onto other networks and reinforce the long-term financial stability of the protocol.