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Aave Foundation

71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, England, WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom

Overview

Aave (from the Finnish word for "ghost") is an open source non-custodial protocol on Ethereum for decentralized lending and borrowing. For lenders, the protocol mints ERC20-compliant aTokens at a 1:1 ratio to supplied assets. Interest immediately starts compounding continuously, represented by a steady increase in the amount of aTokens held by the lender. This interest stream may be redirected to any address, separate from the aTokens that represent the underlying principal. Aave offers flash loans: trustless, uncollateralized loans where borrowing and repayment must occur in the same transaction. Aimed at developers, this feature could lead to innovative uses of DeFi.

Total investments
4
Lead investments
1
Investments · 12mo
2
Active investors
8

Sector focus

  • Cryptocurrency
  • Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
  • Finance
  • Financial Services
  • FinTech
  • Open Source
  • Peer to Peer
  • Software
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Investment portfolio

  • Aave

    Led · Equity · Apr 2026

    Aave is a DeFi lending protocol operating via the Aave DAO and recently launched Aave V4, featuring a hub-and-spoke architecture to support real-world assets, fixed-rate loans and institutional credit markets. According to the report, Aave's total value locked (TVL) was $25.08 billion, with annualized fees of $549.16 million, annualized revenue of $73.4 million, $17.508 billion in outstanding borrows, a treasury balance of $83.49 million, and annual operating expenses of $18.07 million. The protocol's roadmap emphasizes expansion into real-world assets (RWA), consumer products such as Aave App, Aave Pro, Aave Card and Aave Kit, and regulatory positioning including licenses in Ireland and the U.K. Governance decisions are made by the Aave DAO, which now routes 100% of protocol and branded product revenues to the DAO treasury under the newly adopted framework. Aave's strategy is tied to the "Aave Will Win" initiative, which sets ambitious growth targets and funds Aave Labs via milestone-based grants and the recent $25 million stablecoin plus token award.

  • DeFi United

    Participated · Equity · Apr 2026

    DeFi United is a coordinated, multi-protocol rescue fund created by Aave service providers and other ecosystem participants to remediate losses from the KelpDAO bridge exploit that produced ungrafted rsETH on-chain. Its primary purpose is to collect and forward contributions to a designated Ethereum address (defiunited.eth) to restore rsETH coverage and reduce claim shortfalls on Aave V3. The fund assembled $160 million in commitments, including large ETH pledges and protocol asset offers, and continues to accept donations while some contributions remain subject to governance votes. Capital committed to the fund includes direct ETH gifts, staked-asset offers (stETH), and a proposed structured credit facility from Mantle. The rescue effort targets an rsETH deficit that was initially estimated between roughly 68,900 and over 100,000 ETH and responds to modeled Aave losses ranging from about $123.7 million to $230.1 million depending on loss allocation. Participants and observers have characterized DeFi United as among the largest coordinated recovery actions seen in decentralized finance.

  • Build on Bitcoin

    Participated · Equity · Jul 2024

    Build on Bitcoin (BOB) is creating a technology stack that makes Bitcoin-based DeFi possible, positioning itself as the “Gateway to Bitcoin DeFi.” Its core product is the first hybrid zero-knowledge (ZK) rollup designed for Bitcoin, which the team has already brought to testnet. BOB has also launched a BitVM bridge in collaboration with institutional partners and introduced the first Bitcoin intents system that offers one-click BTC access across major chains. The project plans an imminent token generation event (TGE) and a full transition to community governance, reflecting its goal of decentralized ownership. To date, BOB has secured more than $25 million in funding, comprising $21 million from seed and strategic rounds plus a recently completed community sale. This capital is being used to refine its rollup technology, expand cross-chain connectivity, and onboard users and developers into Bitcoin-based DeFi.

  • Fantom Foundation

    Participated · Equity · May 2024

    Fantom announced Sonic, a new chain described as a layer‑1 that connects to Ethereum via a layer‑2 bridge to access ETH and other assets while offering low cost, high scalability and speed. The project will introduce a native token called S and a governance vote approved a 1:1 migration path from FTM to S. Fantom said the Sonic launch will coincide with creation of the Sonic Foundation to handle governance and treasury and Sonic Labs to drive dApp growth, partnerships and user adoption. The team positions Sonic to support high‑throughput use cases including real‑world assets, perpetual DEXs, payments, trading and transaction‑heavy games. Fantom has also completed a fresh financing to support the Sonic effort, as described in its announcement. Fantom Foundation is a Seoul, Korea-based blockchain platform developing a DAG-based smart contract protocol. The platform is designed to process up to 300,000 transactions per second at nearly no cost, enabling faster cryptocurrency transactions than traditional payment systems like Visa and Mastercard. Fantom intends to use the $40M it raised to build and advance its platform. Its DAG-based protocol aims to enable businesses and consumers to execute everyday transactions more rapidly across all sectors. Backers named in the raise include Hyperchain Capital, Signum Capital, 8Decimal, Arrington XRP Capital, Bibox Fund, Link VC, Nirvana Capital and JRR Crypto. The funding was reported by FinSMEs on 22/06/2018.

Team