Participated · Equity · Jul 2024

OpenSocial Protocol provides open-source, modular social infrastructure and tooling (feed, chatrooms, posts, on-chain social graphs, tribes, megaphones and plug-ins such as token issuance, DAO tools, bounties and mini-games) to let creators and communities compose apps quickly and economically. The stack supports both on-chain and off-chain features and emphasizes true ownership of intellectual property, community relationships, and aligned monetization. The project is built by Everest Ventures Group and aims to deploy its infrastructure across major chains while offering a customizable UI layer for creators, moderators, and users. Early product traction includes SoMon, the first app on the protocol, which reached over 30,000 onchain active users in two weeks, ~20 minutes average engagement, and over 300,000 onchain transactions (excluding spam bots). EVG has deployed ~80 developers to develop the infrastructure and OpenSocial aims to help empower and launch 1,000 community apps by 2025. Financially, OpenSocial has raised a total of $26 million to date (a prior $5 million seed round plus $15 million in ecosystem funds, and the new $6 million strategic backing). OpenSocial Protocol is a composable infrastructure layer for building social applications that enables developers and creators to build multichain SocialFi dApps. It provides UI-layer composabilities, ownership of intellectual property and relationships, and monetisation and financial incentives for communities. The protocol has launched its first dApp, SoMon, a decentralized topic-based forum owned by users and communities with degen mechanics and sustainable rewards. Everest Ventures Group (EVG) founded OpenSocial and has set aside a $15M ecosystem fund to support developer adoption; there are 50 additional developers building dApps on OpenSocial outside of EVG. The company says it will use the new funding to expand operations and development efforts. OpenSocial aims to improve community dApps through composable infrastructure and UI-layer building blocks.

Participated · Seed · Jun 2024

Zeek is a decentralized collaboration network that uses on-chain social-bounty mechanics to generate a reputation layer for users. Its core product uses ‘Wishes’ (on-chain bounties) to surface opportunities for information, connections, and contributions. User contributions generate ‘Rizz’, a measurable reputation metric intended to be monetized and to signal credibility and influence. The product is powered by OpenSocial Protocol and the team has designed a token to foster collaboration and on-chain reputation construction. Zeek is currently in Private Beta and is preparing for an official launch in July, with pre-registration open via X and Discord. The company plans a Tier-0 Genesis NFT drop, limited to 250, later this month.

Participated · Equity · Apr 2024

Anichess is a free-to-play online strategy game that layers a novel spell mechanic and special challenges onto traditional chess. Developed in partnership with Chess.com and five-time world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, it operates as a subsidiary of Animoca Brands focused on decentralized chess and spell-chess gameplay. In January 2024 the company launched player-versus-environment (PvE) daily chess puzzles and has since recorded over 1,000,000 registered players. It maintains about 150,000 daily active users who have collectively solved over 50 million puzzles. The company raised US$1.8M in funding and intends to use the capital for game development, marketing initiatives, and team expansion.

Participated · Series A · Aug 2022

Merkle Science (Stackseer Technologies Pte. Ltd.) is a Singapore-based predictive cryptocurrency risk and intelligence platform founded in 2018. Its core product leverages a proprietary Behavioral Rule Engine to enable detection, investigation, and prevention of illicit cryptocurrency activity. The platform serves crypto firms, DeFi participants, financial institutions, and government agencies. The team includes alumni from PayPal, Forter, Luno, Bank of America, the FBI, and the U.S. DOJ. Merkle Science plans to use new capital to accelerate global growth, expand across the U.S. and Europe, and invest in R&D. R&D priorities include analytics and forensics for NFTs, DeFi, and cryptocurrency bridge protocols; total funding now exceeds $24 million following the extension. Merkle Science provides a predictive blockchain monitoring and investigative platform that leverages a proprietary Behavioral Rule Engine to detect illicit activity beyond traditional blacklist approaches. Its Blockchain Monitoring tool helps compliance teams detect suspicious incoming and outgoing cryptocurrency transactions and meet local KYC/AML obligations. The company serves crypto companies, financial institutions, and government entities, and has clients globally. Merkle Science plans to use new funding to accelerate product development for enterprise segments such as law enforcement agencies and financial institutions. It will continue evolving its Behavior-based Rule Engine to address the rise of privacy protocols, expand token coverage to over 500,000 tokens, and customize solutions for DeFi and NFT platforms. The company is led by co‑founder and CEO Mriganka Pattnaik and recently launched in the USA. Merkle Science is described in the article as a deep-tech startup. The company raised $804,000 in a seed funding round. The round was co-led by SGInnovate, the Singapore government’s innovation platform. The fundraising was reported in DealStreetAsia’s SG Digest. The article provides no product details, operating metrics, or future plans for the company.