Hyperliquid founder once rejected a $1 billion valuation funding proposal, insisting on a "zero external investment" approach

Mars Finance reports that on April 13, Colossus reported that Hyperliquid founder Jeffrey Yan received an investment intention based on an estimated valuation of about $1 billion and a scale of approximately $100 million less than a year after the project launched.
But he ultimately chose to reject the investment terms after careful consideration.
The report shows that before and after proposing financing, the team was in a continuous “out-of-pocket” operational state, consuming the founder’s personal funds each month to cover project costs.
During investor outreach, Jeff communicated with multiple entrepreneurs and VCs about the nature and significance of capital injection but was never convinced that “external capital could enhance its intrinsic value.”
In the end, he clearly informed the team on Monday to reject the financing plan.
An internal source described that at that time, team members managing funds were shocked by this decision because many preparatory steps had already been taken around the financing.
Jeff’s core reason is that Hyperliquid is not a traditional company but an on-chain protocol that needs to maintain neutrality.
He believes that once external equity capital is introduced, it could undermine the protocol’s “permissionless and neutral” positioning, conflicting with its long-term design goals.
He has publicly stated that if Bitcoin had accepted VC funding in its early days, its “neutrality narrative” might have been weakened.
Under the same logic, he chose to continue maintaining Hyperliquid’s investor-free structure and support some operational expenses long-term with personal funds.
On January 28, 2024, he summarized the project’s principles on social media:
· No investors
· No paid market makers
· No fees charged to the development team (or the development team does not take fees)
· No insiders (or insider privileges)
This statement is also regarded as the core note of Hyperliquid’s “extreme decentralization/de-capitalization” approach.